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A compilation of the latest Witness History programmes.
The podcast The History Hour is created by BBC World Service. The podcast and the artwork on this page are embedded on this page using the public podcast feed (RSS).
Max Pearson presents a collection of the week's Witness History interviews from the BBC World Service.
It’s 50 years since soldiers of the communist Khmer Rouge party stormed into the capital, Phnom Penh. It was the start of a four year reign of terror which resulted in up to two million people being killed. We hear two stories from people affected by the regime.
Our guest is journalist and author, Elizabeth Becker. She is one of the foremost authorities on the history of Cambodia, and one of the few westerners to have interviewed Pol Pot.
The scientist who invented the white LED lightbulb in 1993 tells his story.
Plus, the Bali Nine: young Australians facing the death penalty for drug smuggling and, Spain’s historic link to World Book Day.
Contributors:
Youk Chang – lived through the Khmer Rouge regime Aki Ra - child soldier of Cambodia Elizabeth Becker – journalist and author Professor Shuji Nakamura – inventor of the white LED lightbulb Bishop Tim Harris – friend of one of the Bali Nine families Pere Vicens - book publisher and one of the creators of World Book Day
(Photo: The fall of Phnom Penh in 1975. Credit: Roland Neveu/LightRocket via Getty Images)
8th May 1945 was a day of rejoicing in Britain, the US and many other countries: Germany had surrendered, and World War II was over, at least in Europe.
Yet it was not a day of celebration for everyone: for the vanquished Germans, it marked the end of bombings and of Nazi rule. But it was also a time of deprivation and chaos, fear and soul-searching. Millions of ethnic Germans had fled their homes to escape the approaching Red Army.
In this documentary, Lore Wolfson Windemuth, whose own father grew up under Nazi rule, unfolds the stories of six ordinary Germans who lived through that extraordinary time, through their memoirs and diaries. Amongst others, we hear from:
Siegbert Stümpke, a 12-year-old schoolboy who was used as a runner by the German Wehrmacht in the final days of the war;
Lore Ehrich, a young mother from East Prussia (now Poland) who had to flee with two small children across a frozen lagoon;
Hans Rosenthal, who was Jewish and had survived the Holocaust hidden in a Berlin allotment colony before very nearly getting shot by the Soviet liberators;
Melita Maschmann, who got hooked on Nazi ideology aged 15, became a youth leader and took years to acknowledge her share of the responsibility for the crimes committed by the National Socialists.
Narrator: Lore Wolfson Windemuth Producer / Editor: Kristine Pommert Research: Katie Harris
A CTVC production for the BBC World Service.
Max Pearson presents a collection of the week's Witness History interviews from the BBC World Service. Our guest is Dr Katrin Paehler, Professor of modern European history at Illinois State University.
First, a journalist describes how he accompanied Hitler through the embers of the Reichstag fire in 1933.
Then, the harrowing recollections of a doctor who saved survivors of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing.
Next, a woman describes how she was caught between her job and her clan during the UN's disastrous Somalia mission in the 1990s.
A Liberian woman explains how she helped end the country's civil war.
Finally, how Germany's 'death zone' became a natural paradise.
Contributors:
Sefton Delmer - British journalist at the Reichstag fire. Dr David Tuggle - surgeon at the Oklahoma City bombing. Halima Ismail Ibrahim - former UN worker in Somalia. Leymah Gbowee - Women of Liberia Mass Action for Peace. Professor Kai Frobel - co-founder of Germany's 'Green Belt'.
(Photo: Reichstag building on fire. Credit: Corbis via Getty Images)
Max Pearson presents a collection of this week's Witness History episodes from the BBC World Service.
We hear from the first woman to lead DC Comics - the home of Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman. Jenette Kahn began turning the company around in the 1970s.
Our expert is Dr Mel Gibson, associate professor at Northumbria University. She has carried out extensive research into comics and graphic novels.
Next, Minda Dentler, the first female wheelchair athlete to complete the super-endurance Ironman World Championship in 2013, tells us about achieving her goal after contracting polio as a child.
Then, the invention of the life-size training dummy Resusci Anne in the 1960s, which was designed to teach mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.
The ghost town in Namibia that's slowly being buried by the desert after it was abandoned in the 1950s when the diamonds ran out.
Finally, the accidental invention of superglue in 1951, which only became a big hit following an appearance on a US tv show.
Contributors: Jenette Kahn - former President of DC Comics. Dr Mel Gibson - associate professor at Northumbria University. Minda Dentler - wheelchair athlete. Tore Lærdal - Executive Chairman of Lærdal Medical. Dieter Huyssen - grandson of an emigree to Kolmanskop in Namibia. Adam Paul - grandson of Dr Harry Coover, inventor of superglue.
(Photo: Cover illustration for Action Comics with Superman, June 1938. Credit: Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
Max Pearson presents a collection of this week's Witness History episodes from the BBC World Service.
We hear about the historic moment in Nigerian politics when Goodluck Jonathan made a phone call to General Buhari marking the peaceful handover of power in 2015.
Our expert is historian and creator of the Untold Stories podcast, Adesuwa Giwa-Osagie, who takes us through Nigeria's political history in the leadup to the phone call that changed Nigeria.
We find out about Harold Riley who was the only artist to ever be granted a sitting to paint Nelson Mandela and how the portrait was unveiled in 2005.
Plus the moment co-pilot, Andreas Lubitz, crashed Germanwings Flight 4U 9525 into a mountain killing 150 people on board in 2015.
In 1991, when a Yugoslav People's Army Commander died in mysterious circumstances during the Croatian War of Independence.
Finally, the creation of a new genre of music called Ethio-jazz in 1960s New York.
Contributors:
Dr Reuben Abati - one of Goodluck Jonathan's special advisers Adesuwa Giwa-Osagie - Historian and creator of the Untold Stories podcast Archive of Harold Riley - the only artist to be granted a sitting with Nelson Mandela General David Galtier - military person who led the Germanwings plane crash search operation Mulatu Astatke - musician and 'father of Ethio-jazz'
Eye-witness accounts brought to life by archive. Witness History is for those fascinated by the past. We take you to the events that have shaped our world through the eyes of the people who were there. For nine minutes every day, we take you back in time and all over the world, to examine wars, coups, scientific discoveries, cultural moments and much more.
Recent episodes explore everything from football in Brazil, the history of the ‘Indian Titanic’ and the invention of air fryers, to Public Enemy’s Fight The Power, subway art and the political crisis in Georgia. We look at the lives of some of the most famous leaders, artists, scientists and personalities in history, including: visionary architect Antoni Gaudi and the design of the Sagrada Familia; Michael Jordan and his bespoke Nike trainers; Princess Diana at the Taj Mahal; and Görel Hanser, manager of legendary Swedish pop band Abba on the influence they’ve had on the music industry. You can learn all about fascinating and surprising stories, such as the time an Iraqi journalist hurled his shoes at the President of the United States in protest of America’s occupation of Iraq; the creation of the Hollywood commercial that changed advertising forever; and the ascent of the first Aboriginal MP.
(Photo:Nigerian president Muhammadu Buhari (L) speaks with outgoing president Goodluck Jonathan (R) Credit: Pool / Nigeria Presidency Press Office/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
Max Pearson presents a collection of this week's Witness History episodes from the BBC World Service. This week we’re looking at the history of space travel, including the 60th anniversary of the first ever space-walk by Russian cosmonaut Alexei Leonov. Also, the speech that would have been given if the Apollo 11 astronauts didn’t make their way back from the moon; the founding of the European Space Agency and how Brazil came back from tragedy to launch their fist successful rocket. The Sky at Night’s Dr Ezzy Pearson joins us to tell us about the history of robot’s in space and the Soviet Union’s exploration of Venus. Contributors: Archive of Alexei Leonov – the first man to walk in space Dr Ezzy Pearson – Features Editor for the BBC’s Sky at Night magazine Felix Palmerio – engineer for Brazil’s space programme Archive of William Safire – speechwriter for US President Richard Nixon Bill Holland – former historian for NASA Andrea Amaldi – grandson of Edoardo Amaldi, one of the founding fathers of the European Space Agency
(Photo: Alexei Leonov on his first space walk in 1965. Credit: Keystone-France/Gamma-Keystone via Getty Images)
Max Pearson presents a collection of this week's Witness History episodes from the BBC World Service.
We find out about the landmark protest in 1990 when wheelchair users crawled up the steps of the US Capitol Building in Washington DC, campaigning for disability rights.
Our expert is Dr Maria Orchard, law lecturer at the University of Leeds, who has carried out research into disability and inclusion.
We hear about the 2015 attack on the Bardo Museum in Tunisia's capital, in which 22 tourists were killed.
Next, the Gambian woman who in 1997 began making bags and purses out of old discarded plastic and is now globally recognised as Africa's Queen of Recycling.
The South African musical King Kong which opened to critical acclaim in 1959 and whose all-black cast defied apartheid.
Finally, the invention of the Global Positioning System - GPS - in the late 1970s, which now keeps aircraft in the sky and supports banking transactions.
Contributors:
Anita Cameron - disability rights campaigner Dr Maria Orchard - lecturer in law at the University of Leeds Hamadi Ben Abdesslem - tour guide Isatou Ceesay - environmental campaigner Nelson Mandela - former President of South Africa Marian Matshikiza - daughter of Todd Matshikiza, jazz pianist and composer Professor Brad Parkinson - chief architect of GPS
(Photo: 8 year-old Jennifer Keelan crawls up the steps of the US Capitol, 12 March 1990. Credit: AP/Jeff Markowitz)
Max Pearson presents a collection of the week’s Witness History interviews from the BBC World Service.
We find out how Sylvan Goldman’s invention of the shopping trolley in 1930s America turned him into a multi-millionaire.
Our expert is Rachel Bowlby, Professor of Comparative Literature at University College London, who is also the author of two books on the history of shopping.
We hear about Toyota’s military pick-up trucks that transformed the 1987 north African conflict between Chad and Libya.
The 2015 migrant crisis in Europe which led to thousands of people setting-up camp in the French port of Calais.
Next, how US forces invaded the Central American state of Panama in 1989 to depose General Manuel Noriega.
And finally in 1965 at the height of the USA’s civil rights struggle, the landmark legislation that was brought in to guarantee the rights of African Americans to vote.
This programme contains outdated language which some people might find offensive.
Contributors: Charles Kuralt – a journalist for CBS News Sylvan Goldman – inventor of the shopping trolley Rachel Bowlby - Professor of Comparative Literature at University College London Mahamat Saleh Bani - former officer in the Chadian Armed Forces Enrique Jelenszky – lawyer Jean-Marc Puissesseau - former President and Chairman of the Port of Calais C T Vivian – US minister George Wallace – former Governor of Alabama Lyndon B Johnson – former President of the United States
(Photo: A woman pushing a shopping cart, 1949. Credit: Bettman via Getty Images)
Max Pearson presents a collection of the week’s Witness History interviews from the BBC World Service.
We hear about the moment Dr Max Perutz discovered the haemoglobin structure.
Our expert is Professor Sir Alan Fersht, who is a chemist at the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology and knew Dr Perutz personally.
We also hear about 22 Inuit children from Greenland's indigenous population who were sent to Denmark as part of a social experiment in 1951.
Also, when mixed-raced children from the then Belgian Congo known as ‘métis’, were forcibly taken from their homes in 1953.
When an eruption of violence in Assam led to an estimated 3,000 being killed in the Nellie massacre of 1983.
Finally, the devastating impact of the 2010 tsunami in Chile and a woman who survived it.
This programme contains outdated language which some people might find offensive.
Contributors: Lectures and programmes from the BBC archive Professor Sir Alan Fersht - chemist at the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology. Helen Thiesen - a child in Denmark's Inuit children social experiment. Marie-José Loshi - one of the mixed-race ‘métis’ who was forcibly removed from her home in the then Belgian Congo. Bedabrata Lahkar - a journalist for the Assam Tribune newspaper at the time of the Nellie massacre. Alison Campbell - a survivor of Chile’s 2010 tsunami.
(Photo: Dr Max Perutz and Dr Paul Kedrew. Credit: Hulton Deutsch/Contributor via Getty Images)
Max Pearson presents a collection of the week's Witness History interviews from the BBC World Service.
We hear about the death of one of the oldest languages in the world, when an 85 year old woman died and took it with her in 2010.
Our expert guest is Dr Mandana Seyfeddinipur, who is the Head of the Endangered Languages Archive which endeavours to preserve languages that are disappearing at “an alarming rate.”
We also hear about the historian who helped bring a former Stasi officer to justice decades after he killed a man.
Also the moment Bolivia elected its first ever indigenous president in 2005.
The Thai couple that broke the world record for the longest kiss twice.
Plus, it’s 60 years since the controversial black activist, Malcolm X was assassinated. We hear from a man who was in the audience in New York when it happened.
This programme contains outdated and offensive language.
Contributors: Dr Anvita Abbi – linguist who documented one of the oldest languages before it died Dr Mandana Seyfeddinipur – Head of the Endangered Languages Archive Dr Filip Gańczak – the historian who helped convict a former Stasi officer of murder Herman Ferguson who was in the audience when Malcolm X was assassinated Álvaro García Linera – Vice President of Bolivia under Evo Morales for 14 years Ekkachai – one half of the couple who broke the record for the world’s longest kiss
(Photo: Boa Senior in Hospital. Credit: Anvita Abbi)
Max Pearson presents a collection of the week's Witness History interviews from the BBC World Service. We discuss the 1992 speech given by Australian Prime Minister, Paul Keating, in which he acknowledged the moral responsibility his government should bear for the horrors committed against Indigenous Australians, with our guest Dr Rebe Taylor from Tasmania University.
We also look at two female orators from opposite ends of the political spectrum: Eva Peron, also known as Evita, from right-wing Argentina and Dolores Ibárruri, who was a communist and anti-fascist fighter in the Spanish Civil War.
There are also two speeches from the USA, one which is remembered as one of the great presidential speeches of all time and another which help to change the view of AIDS in the country.
Contributors: Don Watson - who wrote Paul Keating's Redfern speech in 1992.
Dr Rebe Taylor - Australian historian from the University of Tasmania.
Archive of Eva Peron - former first lady of Argentina.
Mary Fisher - who addressed the Republican Party convention in 1992.
David Eisenhower and Stephen Hess - Dwight Eisenhower's grandson and former speechwriter.
Archive of Delores Ibárruri - former anti-fascist fighter in the Spanish Civil War.
(Photo: Paul Keating Credit: Pickett/The Sydney Morning Herald/Fairfax Media via Getty Images)
Max Pearson presents a collection of the week's Witness History interviews from the BBC World Service. Our guest is film critic and journalist Helen O'Hara who dissects what makes a cult film classic, after we hear about the making of the 1989 American film Heathers.
We also learn about the French philosopher behind the theory of deconstruction and how the world first became aware of coral bleaching in the 1980s.
As the climax of the American Football season approaches we look back at one of the most memorable moments from Super Bowl history.
Contributors: Lisanne Falk - American star of the film Heathers.
Helen O'Hara - film critic and journalist.
Helene Cixous - lifetime friend of French philosopher Jacques Derrida.
Agathe Hébras - granddaughter of Robert Hébras, survivor of the Oradour Massacre.
Clive Wilkinson - the former co-ordinator for the Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network.
Osi Umenyiora - two-time Super Bowl winner with the New York Giants.
(Photo: Winona Ryder, Kim Walker, Lisanne Falk, and Shannen Doherty on the set of Heathers 1988, New World Pictures/Getty Images)
We hear from 'wolf child' Luise Quietsch who was separated from her family and forced to flee East Prussia. Whilst trying to survive during World War Two, these children were likened to hungry wolves roaming through forests.
Journalist and documentary film-maker Sonya Winterberg who recorded the testimony of “wolf children” for her book, discusses the profound impact it had on their lives.
We also hear about the first major series of English lessons which were broadcast on Chinese television in 1981. Kathy Flower presented the English education programme, Follow Me, several times a week at primetime. It was watched by an estimated 500 million people keen to get a taste of the English language and observe westerners on television. Kathy Flower recalls what it was like becoming the most famous foreign person in China.
A series of unprecedented teachers’ strikes temporarily shut most of New York’s schools in the late 1960s, provoked by an ongoing dispute over whether parents could have a say in the running of their children’s schools. Monifa Edwards was a pupil at a school in the district of Ocean Hill-Brownsville, a name that became synonymous with the struggle over who controlled the local schools: the communities or the mainly white city officials.
On 16 March 1988, loyalist paramilitary Michael Stone killed three mourners and injured 60 others attending a funeral for IRA members killed in Gibraltar. American journalist Bill Buzenberg, who was covering the funeral for National Public Radio in the US, was knocked off his feet in the gun and grenade attack.
Finally we head to Eastern Europe in 1989, where approximately two million people joined hands across across Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania to form a human chain demanding independence from the Soviet Union. It was a key moment in the protests in Eastern Europe that became known as the Singing Revolution. In 2010, Damien McGuinness spoke to MEP Sandra Kalniete, a Latvian organiser of the event.
(Photo: Luise Quietsch. Credit: Rita Naujokaitytė)
Max Pearson presents a collection of the week’s Witness History episodes, all about events which happened in 1995.
First, we hear how Microsoft launched Windows 95 after a $300 million marketing campaign.
Our expert guest is Dr Lisa McGerty – Chief Executive of the Centre for Computing History in Cambridge.
Next, after 17 years terrorising America, we hear about the hunt for the Unabomber.
Plus, the sarin gas attack on a Tokyo metro, carried out by members of a doomsday cult.
Finally, how China exerted its influence over Tibetan Buddhism’s leadership.
Contributors:
Sarah Leary – project manager for Microsoft.
Dr Lisa McGerty – Chief Executive of the Centre for Computing History.
Carmine Gallo – police officer.
Dr Kathleen Puckett – FBI agent.
Atsushi Asakahara – metro passenger.
Arjia Rinpoche – senior Tibetan Lama.
(Photo: People lined up by US Microsoft Windows 95 exhibit. Credit: Forrest Anderson/Getty Images)
Josephine McDermott sits in for Max Pearson presenting a collection of the week’s Witness History episodes.
We hear from the author who stumbled across the story of Oskar Schindler while shopping for a briefcase in Beverly Hills.
Our guest is Dr Anne-Marie Scholz, from the University of Bremen in Germany, who reflects on the impact of dramatizations of World War Two.
We also hear about the start of Drum magazine, credited with giving black African writers a voice in the time of Apartheid.
The devastation of the earthquake in the port city of Kobe, Japan, is recalled by a child survivor.
Plus, the New Deal created by President Franklin D Roosevelt to drag the United States from the Depression of the 1930s.
Finally, the family intervention of American former First Lady Betty Ford, which led to the world-famous rehabilitation clinic being started.
Contributors:
Thomas Keneally – author of Schindler’s Ark.
Dr Anne-Marie Scholz - author of From Fidelity to History: Film Adaptations as Cultural Events in the 20th Century.
Prospero Bailey - son of Jim Bailey on the origins of Drum magazine.
Kiho Park – survivor of the 1995 Kobe earthquake.
Adam Cohen – expert on Roosevelt's New Deal.
Susan Ford Bales – daughter of Betty Ford.
(Photo: Nazi SS troops in Germany. Credit: Getty Images)
Max Pearson presents a collection of the week’s Witness History episodes.
We hear a first-hand account of the attack at the offices of French satirical magazine, Charlie Hebdo.
Our expert guest is Dr Chris Millington, who leads the Histories and Cultures of Conflict research group at Manchester Metropolitan University.
We also hear about Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg who saved thousands of Hungarian Jews during World War Two.
Plus, the Bosphorus boat spotter tracking Russian military trucks in Turkey.
Russian military trucks on a civilian ship bound for Syria.
Also, the Norwegian man who invented the hotel key card in the 1970s.
Finally, we’re sparking joy with Japanese tidying expert Marie Kondo.
Contributors:
Riss – Charlie Hebdo cartoonist.
Dr Chris Millington - Histories and Cultures of Conflict research group at Manchester Metropolitan University.
Yörük Işık – boat spotter.
Archive recordings from 2015.
Anders – son of Tor Sornes.
Marie Kondo - organising consultant.
(Photo: Charlie Hebdo mural. Credit: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images)
Max Pearson presents a collection of the week’s Witness History episodes.
We hear two stories from the deadly 2004 Boxing Day tsunami, which killed thousands of people in south-east Asia.
Our expert guest is Ani Naqvi, a former journalist who was on holiday in Sri Lanka when the wave hit.
We also hear from the two Polish students who created the voice of Alexa, the smart speaker.
Plus, the story of Klaus Fuchs, the German-born physicist who passed nuclear secrets to the Soviet Union while working on the first atomic bomb.
Finally, we find out about Robert Ripley, the American cartoonist who made millions from sharing bizarre facts.
Contributors:
Choodamani and Karibeeran Paramesvaran – couple whose three children died in the Boxing Day tsunami.
Dendy Montgomery – photographer who captured the tsunami devastation.
Ani Naqvi – former journalist who was caught up in the tsunami.
Lukasz Osowski and Michal Kaszczuk – creators of Alexa.
Klaus Fuchs-Kittowski – nephew of atomic spy Klaus Fuchs.
John Corcoran – director of exhibits at Ripley’s.
(Photo: Tsunami devastation in Indonesia. Credit: Getty Images)
Max Pearson presents a collection of the week’s Witness History interviews which all relate to food. First, Dinner for One, the British TV sketch that's become a German New Year’s Eve tradition. Our expert guest is Ingrid Sharp, professor of German cultural and gender history at the University of Leeds. She tells us about some other festive traditions in Northern Europe including Krampus – the horned figure said to punish children who misbehave at Christmas. We also hear about when South Korea and Japan had a diplomatic row over kimchi. Plus, the arrival of instant noodles in India and how they changed people’s cooking habits. Next we find out how the BBC's Masterchef conquered the world of TV cookery. Finally, the first woman to become White House head chef describes what it’s like to cook for five presidents.
Contributors:
Thomas Frankenfeld – son of Peter Frankenfeld who produced Dinner for One.
Ingrid Sharp - professor of German cultural and gender history at the University of Leeds.
Dr Chaelin Park - World Institute of Kimchi.
Sangeeta Talwar – former executive vice president of Nestle India.
Franc Roddam – creator of Masterchef.
Cristeta Comerford – former White House chef.
(Photo: Dinner for One. Credit: Getty Images)
Max Pearson presents a collection of the week's Witness History interviews from the BBC World Service. Our guest is Professor Chandrika Kaul, a specialist on modern British and Imperial history at the University of St Andrews in the UK.
We start by hearing from both sides of Australia's 1999 referendum on becoming a republic.
Then, a survivor recounts the horrific 1972 Andes plane crash and the extraordinary things he had to do to survive.
We hear how the BBC put text on our television screens for the first time.
Plus, a grieving mother recounts the Taliban's horrific 2014 attack on a military school in Pakistan.
Finally, we hear how the communist authorities enforced martial law in Poland over Christmas in 1981.
Contributors:
Malcolm Turnbull - former Australian Prime Minister and leader of republican campaign. Professor David Flint - leader of Australians for Constitutional Monarchy. Nando Parrado - Andes plane crash survivor. Angus McIntyre - son of Colin McIntyre, Ceefax's first editor. Andaleeb Aftab - survivor of Pakistani military school attack. Maciek Romejko - Polish Solidarity member and activist
(Photo: Malcolm Turnbull, leader of the Australian Republican Movement, 1999. Credit: Torsten Blackwood/AFP via Getty Images)
Max Pearson presents a collection of the week's Witness History interviews from the BBC World Service. Our guest is Joan Flores-Villalobos, Assistant Professor in the Department of History at the University of Southern California, and author of The Silver Women: How Black Women’s Labor Made the Panama Canal.
First, we hear from a man involved in the handover of the canal from the United States to Panama in 1999. Then, DJ and singer Leonardo Renato Aulder explains how the canal led to the creation of Reggaeton music.
Next we go to Cuba. An old comrade of Fidel Castro recounts the violent start of the Cuban revolution in 1953. And a member of the Obama administration explains how he negotiated better US-Cuba relations in 2014.
Finally, the story of the 442nd US military regiment, made up almost entirely of Japanese Americans, that earned more than 4,000 Purple Heart medals for extraordinary heroism during World War Two.
Contributors: Alberto Aleman Zubieta - Panama Canal administrator. Leonardo Renato Aulder - Reggaeton singer and DJ. Joan Flores-Villalobos - Assistant Professor at the University of Southern California. Agustín Díaz Cartaya - Cuban revolutionary. Ben Rhodes - Speechwriter for US President Barack Obama. Clyde Kusatsu - son of 442nd Regiment veteran.
(Photo: World War Two veterans from the highly decorated 442nd Regiment in 2015. Credit: Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)
In partnership with the BBC 100 Women list, we have a selection of stories about inspiring and influential women from around the world.
Scientist Katalin Karikó, who won the Nobel Prize and helped save millions of lives in the Covid 19 pandemic, Julia Gillard, the former Australian prime minister who took a stand against misogyny in politics, and Indian artist Nalini Malani whose instillation got people thinking about the consequences of nuclear conflict.
We also hear from the founder of Ms Magazine, the feminist campaigner Gloria Steinem who in 1972, co-founded the first magazine in the US which was owned, run and written by women.
And the story of Portugal's "Three Marias" whose book ‘Novas Cartas Portuguesas’, was banned after it was published.
Contributors:
Maria Teresa Horta - one of the "Three Marias".
Dr Katalin Karikó - Nobel Prize winning scientist.
Valeria Perasso - Team leader at the BBC's 100 Women project.
Julia Gillard - Former Australian Prime Minister.
Nalini Malani - Indian artist.
Gloria Steinem - Co-founder of Ms Magazine.
(Photo: Nalini Malani. Credit: Ritesh Uttamchandani/Hindustan Times via Getty Images)
We hear from Magnus Carlsen, who in 2014, became the first player ever to win all three world chess titles in one year, achieving the highest official rating of any player in history.
Woman grandmaster, three times British champion and chess historian, Yao Lan is our guest. She talks about the origin of chess.
In the 1970s and 80s, scientists in Russia, managed to dig a hole more than 12,000 metres deep. It was called the Kola Superdeep Borehole. One of the geophysicists involved tells us about the deepest man-made hole in the world.
Plus, one of the most controversial political scandals in modern US history, the Iran-Contra affair. And from 2010, the first HIV positive passenger to travel legally to the US after a 22-year ban.
Finally, the story behind the BBC's Strictly Come Dancing tv show.
Contributors:
Magnus Carlsen - chess grandmaster and five-time World Chess Champion
Yao Lan - chess woman grandmaster, three times British champion and chess historian.
Professor David Smythe – geophysicist.
Clemens Ruland – first HIV positive passenger to travel legally to the US after a 22-year ban.
Karen Smith - co-creator and executive producer Strictly Come Dancing.
(Photo: Magnus Carlsen in 2014. Credit: Francois Nel/Getty Images)
During the early years of Syria’s brutal civil war, the neighbourhood of Yarmouk, close to the Syrian capital Damascus, bore the brunt of the government’s viciousness. Known as ‘the Pianist of Yarmouk,’ Aeham tells Mike Lanchin about their struggle to survive the siege, and how music helped him overcome some of those dark days. Dr Gillian Howell, senior research fellow at the University of Melbourne explains how music has been used as a form of protest and honouring lives lost during conflict.
After Iran's Islamic Revolution in 1979, some Christians faced persecution. Between 2002 and 2005, Naghmeh Panahi and her husband, Saeed Abedini, set up a network of secret 'house churches' across the country.
It is 70 years since William Golding’s acclaimed novel was published. Lord of the Flies is the story of a group of English schoolboys marooned on a desert island, and how they survive without adults. Golding's daughter, Judy Carver, spoke to Vincent Dowd, about her father’s work in 2014.
In 1999, the small territory of Macau was handed back to China after centuries of Portuguese rule. Lawyer and comedian Miguel Senna Fernandes was a member of the Macau Legislative Council and involved in the historic handover.
In 1993, a new combat sport was born. Its founders called it the Ultimate Fighting Championship – UFC. It pitted all forms of mixed martial arts against each other with little to no rules and all contained in an octagon-shaped cage. One of the men responsible for cooking up this new concept was TV producer Campbell McLaren. He tells Anoushka Mutanda-Dougherty how he used controversy to market the violent spectacle. This episode contains descriptions of violence, which some listeners may find distressing.
Presenter: Max Pearson
(Photo: Aeham Ahmad, the Pianist of Yarmouk and other Palestinian musician refugees in Damascus, in Syria, in 2014. Credit: Rame Alsayed/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)
We hear about the half-clay, half-grass exhibition match between Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer. Argentinean creative entrepreneur and tennis fan Pablo del Campo tells Uma Doraiswamy how he made the iconic court possible in May 2000. Fiona Skille, professor of Sports History at Glasgow Caledonian University, explains the history of sport exhibition matches.
In 1974, Greece held a referendum to decide the future of the country’s monarchy, and whether Constantine II would remain their king. In December 1974 4.5million million people went to the polls to cast their vote. The result was two to one in favour of a republic. Jane Wilkinson looks through the BBC archives to find out more.
Next, a mountain massacre in base camp of the Nanga Parbat mountain in the Gilgit-Baltistan region of Pakistan killed 19 people. . Polish climber Aleksandra Dzik, aged 30, was on the mountain that night, at camp two, and speaks to Megan Jones.
Plus, India’s coal-mine rescue. On 16 November 1989, mining engineer Jaswant Singh Gill saved 65 miners from the Mahabir Coal Mine, in India. The miners, who had been trapped for three days after a flood, were winched out one by one using a tiny, steel capsule. Rachel Naylor speaks to Jaswant's son, Sarpreet Singh Gill.
In 2013, a six-year-old from Argentina became one of the youngest people in the world to legally have their gender changed on official documents through self-declaration. Gabriela Mansilla reveals, the fight for recognition was not easy for her daughter Luana.
(Photo: 'The Battle of the Surfaces' at The Palma Arena on May 2, 2007 in Mallorca. Credit: Clive Brunskill/Getty Images)
We hear about Polish war hero Irena Sendler who saved thousands of Jewish children during the World War Two.
Expert Kathryn Atwood explains why women’s stories of bravery from that time are not as prominent as men’s.
Plus, the invention of ‘Baby’ – one of the first programmable computers. It was developed in England at the University of Manchester. Gill Kearsley has been looking through the archives to find out more about the 'Baby
In the second half of the programme, we tell stories from Iran. Journalist Sally Quinn looks back at the excess of the Shah of Iran’s three-day party, held in 1971.
Two very different women – the former Empress of Iran, Farah Pahlavi, and social scientist Rouhi Shafi – describe how it feels to be exiled from their country.
Finally, Barry Rosen shares the dramatic story of when he was held hostage in the US embassy in the Tehran for 444 days.
Presenter: Max Pearson
(Photo: Children rescued from the Warsaw Ghetto by Irena Sendler. Credit: Getty Images)
Max Pearson presents a collection of the week's Witness History episodes.
For nearly 40 years, Siegfried and Roy wowed audiences in Las Vegas with death-defying tricks involving white lions and tigers. But in 2003, their magic show came to a dramatic end when a tiger attacked Roy live on stage.
We find out what went wrong, and speak to magician and author Margaret Steele about the - sometimes dangerous - history of illusion and magic.
Plus, we learn more about the so-called ‘Ken Burns effect’; the technique of making still photographs that appear to be moving. In 2002, the method came to the attention of one of the biggest names in the field of technology, Steve Jobs.
Also, the New Zealand woman who was nicknamed ‘the Queen of the Skies’ for her record breaking flights of the 1930s. Jean Batten flew planes made of wood and canvas during the golden age of aviation.
And we go back to 1996 for Brazil's early adoption of electronic voting, and discover more about the experiments behind the creation of Greenwich Mean Time.
Contributors: Ken Burns - film maker Chris Lawrence - animal trainer Margaret Steele - magic historian, magician and author Carlos Velozo - lawyer Jean Batten – aviator Emily Akkermans - Curator of Time, Royal Museums Greenwich Keith Moore - the Royal Society of London
(Photo: Siegfried and Roy with a white lion cub, Las Vegas, 1997. Credit: Barry King/WireImage)
First, on its 50th anniversary of Dungeons & Dragons, we hear from Luke Gygax, whose father created the fantasy role-play game. We also hear from Dr Melissa Rogerson, senior lecturer and board games researcher at the University of Melbourne in Australia.
Then, the first dinosaur remains discovered in Antarctica in 1986, by Argentinian geologist Eduardo Olivero.
Next, Ethiopia’s internal relief efforts during the famine in 1984, led by Dawit Giorgis.
Plus, the fight to stop skin lightening in India with Kavitha Emmanuel who launched a campaign in 2013.
Finally, Angolan singer and former athlete Jose Adelino Barceló de Carvalho, known as Bonga Kwenda, speaks about his music being banned in 1972 and going into exile.
Presenter: Max Pearson
(Photo: Vintage game modules from the role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons on display. Credit: E.Jason Wambsgans/Chicago Tribune/Getty Images)
We hear about the Sunflower Movement in Taiwan in 2014. Brian Hioe, an activist who occupied Parliament in Taipei, recalls the events.
We hear from Nino Zuriashvili, one of the protesters at the Rose Revolution in Georgia in 2003. And Prof Kasia Boddy, author of Blooming Flowers: A Seasonal History of Plants and People explains how flowers have been used as symbols in political history.
Plus, the Afghan refugee who fled as a 15 year old. Waheed Arian, a doctor and former Afghan refugee describes his perilous journey.
We look at the Yellow Fleet of ships, which were stranded in the Suez Canal for eight years. Phil Saul, who looked after the engineers and officers on board the MS Melampus and MS Agapenor in the Suez Canal, recounts his experiences.
Finally, the story of the British afro hair care institution Dyke and Dryden. We hear from Rudi Page, the former marketing manager for Dyke and Dryden's afro hair products.
Presenter: Max Pearson
(Photo: An activist taking part in the Sunflower Movement in Taipei on 21 March 2014. Credit: Mandy Cheng/AFP)
We start with the world's first general purpose electronic computer, the ENIAC, built in 1946 by a team of female mathematicians including Kathleen Kay McNulty. We speak to Gini Mauchly Calcerano, daughter of Kathleen Kay McNulty, who developed ENIAC.
Then we hear about the man who invented the original chatbot, called Eliza, but did not believe computers could achieve intelligence. We speak to Miriam Weizenbaum, daughter of Joseph Weizenbaum, who built Eliza chatbot.
Following that, Dr Hiromichi Fujisawa describes how his team at Waseda University in Japan developed the first humanoid robot in 1973, called WABOT-1.
Staying in Japan, the engineer Masahiro Hara explains how he was inspired to design the first QR code by his favourite board game.
Finally, Thérèse Izay Kirongozi recounts how the death of her brother drove her to build robots that manage traffic in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Max Pearson presents a collection of the week's Witness History episodes. Our guest is Zoe Kleinman, the BBC's technology editor.
(Photo: Robots manage traffic in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo. Credit: Federico Scoppa/AFP)
We start our programme in 1973, when two men claiming to be Colombian guerrillas hijacked a plane making it fly across Latin American for 60 hours. Edilma Perez was a former fight attendant for SAM airline.
Our expert guest is Brendan Koerner author of The Skies Belong To Us: Love and Terror in the Golden Age of Hijacking.
Then we take a look at the 2009 UN-backed war crime tribunals in Cambodia that aimed to hold the genocidal Khmer Rouge commanders to account. Rob Hamill, brother of Toul Sleng prisoner Kerry Hamill.
Following that we hear about the striking speech that inspired the Law of the Sea. We speak Christina Pardo Menez, Arvid Pardo's daughter and David Attard, Arvid Pardo's friend.
Then we go back to 1989 and hear how South Africa became the first country to make and then dismantle nuclear weapons. André Buys, was plant manager and systems engineer at Kentron Circle.
And finally we hear a first hand account of the 1938 Kristallnacht from Kurt Salomon Maier.
Presenter: Max Pearson
(Photo: SAM airlines 1973 Latin American flight. Credit: Jamie Escobar)
We start with the story of a couple who were arrested under South Africa's Immorality Act, which banned sexual relationships between white people and non-white people. Dr Zureena Desai was arrested under the Immorality Act in South Africa.
Another law banned Inter-racial marriage in South Africa. In 1985, this was lifted. Suzanne La Clerc and Protas Madlala, the first inter-racial couple to get married under new rules in South Africa share their memories.
Our guest is Dr Susanne Klausen, The Brill professor of Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies at The Pennsylvania State University in the USA. She talks about love, marriage and sex in apartheid South Africa and the two laws that were both repealed on the same day in 1985.
We hear from Urban Lambertson, survivor of the Estonia ferry disaster in 1994, one of the deadliest shipping disasters since the Titanic.
Film-maker Allen Hughes tells of the time when rap sensation, Tupac Shakur was fired from the crime movie Menace II Society.
Finally, the ‘moon man of India’ Dr Mylswamy Annadurai, a scientist working on India’s Mars Orbiter Mission tells of the country’s momentous mission to Mars.
(Photo: Dr Zureena Desai. Credit: Abrie Jantjies)
Max Pearson presents a collection of the week’s Witness History episodes.
We start our programme looking at the discovery of New Zealand’s first dinosaur by Joan Wiffen.
Our expert guest is Professor Eugenia Gold, a paleontologist at Suffolk University, in Boston, United States, and the author of children’s book She Found Fossils.
Then, we hear how the CT scanner was invented.
Following that, we go to India in 1994 and an outbreak of the pneumonic plague.
Plus, the story of how a small group of mountaineers risked their lives to camouflage landmarks in Leningrad during World War Two.
Finally, we hear from designer Ruth Kedar about how she came to create one of the most famous logos in history.
Contributors:
Chris Wiffen – son of late fossil-hunter Joan Wiffen.
Professor Eugenia Gold – paleontologist at Suffolk University, Boston, United States.
Robert Cormack – son of late CT scanner inventor, Allan Cormack.
Doctor Vibha Marfatia – who escaped the pneumonic plague.
Mikhail Bobrov – late mountaineer who helped save Leningrad’s landmarks.
Ruth Kedar - designer of the Google logo.
(Photo: Theropod dinosaur. Credit: Science Photo Library)
Max Pearson presents a collection of the week’s Witness History episodes.
We’re looking at key moments in Ethiopian history, as it’s 50 years since Emperor Haile Selassie was overthrown in a military coup.
We start our programme looking at the moment a military junta called the Derg who ousted the monarchy in September 1974.
Then, we hear how, before this, the Emperor lived in exile in Bath, in the west of England.
Our expert guest is Hewan Semon Marye, who is junior professor at the University of Hamburg in Germany.
Then, Abebech Gobena who founded an orphanage and was known as Africa’s Mother Teresa.
Following that, the oldest skeleton of a human ancestor, discovered in 1994.
Finally, the Axum Obelisk, returned to Ethiopia in 2005, after being looted by Italy’s fascist dictator.
Contributors: Lij Mulugeta Asseratte Kassa – relative of Haile Selassie.
Professor Shawn-Naphtali Sobers – University of the West of England, Bristol.
Professor Hewan Semon Marye – Ethiopian Studies and Contemporary North-East African Studies at the University of Hamburg, Germany.
Hannah Merkana – raised in Abebech Gobena’s orphanage.
Professor Yohannes Haile Selassie – Paleoanthropologist.
Michele Daniele – Architect.
(Photo: Haile Selassie in his study. Credit: Universal History Archive/Getty Images)
Myra Anubi presents a collection of the week's Witness History episodes.
We hear about the Irish law that banned married women from working in state jobs until 1973 and Apollo 13's attempted trip to the Moon in 1970.
Plus the Umbrella protest in Hong Kong, the ancient Egyptian mummy who flew to France for a makeover and the Argentine basketball player and wrestler nicknamed the Giant.
Contributors: Bernie Flynn - one of the first married women to keep her job after the marriage bar was abolished in Ireland. Irene Mosca - economics lecturer at Maynooth University, in Ireland. Fred Haise - NASA astronaut who was on board Apollo 13. Nathan Law - leader of the Umbrella protest in Hong Kong. Anne-Marie Gouden - receptionist at the Musée de l'Homme in Paris. Julio Lamas - Jorge Gonzalez's basketball coach. Bill Alfonso - wrestling referee and Jorge Gonzalez's personal assistant.
(Photo: A couple on their wedding day. Credit: Getty Images)
Max Pearson presents a collection of the week's Witness History episodes. Our guest is European Space Agency astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti, who completed the longest uninterrupted space flight of any European.
First, we go to Australia in the 1990s when amateur radio enthusiast Maggie Iaquinto befriended Soviet cosmonauts on the Mir space station. She updated them on global news as the USSR crumbled back on Earth.
Then, the inspiring story of Waris Dirie, who walked barefoot across the Somalian desert to escape child marriage and became an international supermodel.
We hear a harrowing account of Guatemala's civil war that ended in 1996.
Then, why the author of Mary Poppins, PL Travers, hated the Disney film.
Finally, the Canadian town that welcomed aliens in 1967.
Contributors: Samantha Cristoforetti - European Space Agency astronaut. Ben Iaquinto - son of Maggie Iaquinto who befriended Soviet cosmonauts. Waris Dirie - model from Somalia. Jeremias Tecu - survivor of Guatemala's civil war. Brian Sibley and Kitty Travers - friend and daughter of PL Travers. Paul Boisvert - worked on Canada's alien landing pad.
(Photo: Mir Space Station in 1995. Credit: Space Frontiers/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
A warning, this programme includes an account of antisemitic views and descriptions of violence.
Egypt recruited thousands of Nazis after World War Two to bolster its security. We hear from Frank Gelli, who in 1964 met Hitler's former propagandist, Johann von Leers, in Cairo.
Author, Vyvyan Kinross is our guest and talks about Nazis in Egypt.
Also, the celebrity murder case that divided France and how in 2001, Argentina went through five leaders in two weeks.
Shatbhi Basu, talks about how became known as India's first female bartender and finally the origins of La Tomatina, one of Spain’s most popular international festivals, as well as the largest tomato fight in the world.
Contributors:
Eduardo Duhalde – former Argentine President. Vyvyan Kinross – author. Michelle Fines- journalist. Shatbhi Basu - beverage consultant, mixologist and writer. Frank Gelli -met Nazi propagandists in Cairo. Goltran Zanon – involved in the first La Tomatina. Maria Jose Zanon - daughter of Goltran Zanon. Enric Cuenca Yxeres - Valencian history teacher.
(Photo: Johannes von Leers. Credit: ullstein bild via Getty Images)
We hear about the founding father of Indonesian independence.
Then, we look at how 'spray on skin' was used after the 2002 Bali bombings.
Next, we hear about the last ever Olympic art competition.
Plus, the most decorated Paralympian in history.
And, the Brazilian singer who earned the title Queen of Samba.
Max Pearson presents a collection of this week's Witness History and Sporting Witness interviews. Our guest is Professor of Indonesian history, Kirsten Shulze from the London School of Economics and Political Science.
Contributors:
Kartika Soekarno – Sukarno’s youngest daughter.
Professor Kirsten Shulze - London School of Economics and Political Science.
Professor Fiona Wood – Burns specialist.
Daniel Weinzweig – John Weinzweig’s son.
Trischa Zorn-Hudson – Paralympian.
Adelzon Alves – Broadcaster and samba record producer.
(Photo: Sukarno. Credit: Christian Hirous/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images).
Max Pearson presents a collection of the week's Witness History episodes.
It's 50 years since Richard Nixon became the first US president in history to resign, following the Watergate scandal.
To mark this anniversary, we're featuring first hand accounts from major moments in US presidential history.
We start with the first ever presidential television debate. In 1956, the Democratic and Republican candidates sent female representatives. They were Eleanor Roosevelt and Margaret Chase Smith.
Our expert guest, Dr Kathryn Brownell, from Purdue University in Indiana in the US, discovers other key television debate moments in presidential history.
Then, we hear about the rise of the religious right in America, exploring the emergence of the Moral Majority in the late 1970s.
Following that, we look at one of the closest and most contested elections in history, as Al Gore went head-to-head with George W Bush in the battle for the White House in 2000.
Finally, we hear from the photographer inside the Situation Room as the US closed in on terrorist Osama Bin Laden in 2011.
Contributors: Tom DeFrank - Journalist. Dr Kathryn Brownell - Associate professor of history at Purdue University. Kate Scott and Janann Sherman - Historians. Richard Viguerie - One of the founders of the Moral Majority. Callie Shell - The official photographer for Al Gore's presidential campaign. Pete Souza - Chief Official White House Photographer during Barack Obama's presidency.
(Photo: Richard Nixon waves after becoming the first US president to resign. Credit: Bettmann / Getty Images)
A warning for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander listeners - this programme contains the names and voices of people who have died.
Max Pearson presents a collection of the week's Witness History episodes.
We take a look at the Ice Bucket Challenge, the viral fundraising sensation that took over the internet in 2014.
Our guest Professor Sander van der Linden breaks down the psychology behind virality and outlines the challenges facing those who conquered the algorithm.
Plus, how one man smuggled punk rock over the Berlin Wall.
Also, we meet the man who found a retirement home for Bulgaria's dancing bears.
We hear the remarkable story of Australia's Freedom Riders who campaigned against indigenous discrimination.
Finally, we relive the mountain top escape of the Yazidi's who were fleeing Islamic State Militants.
Contributors: Nancy Frates – Pete Frates mother. Sander van der Linden - Professor of Social Psychology at Cambridge University. Mark Reeder - smuggled punk rock over the Berlin Wall. Dr Amir Khalil – founded the sanctuary for dancing bears. Darce Cassidy and Gary Williams – involved in the Freedom Rides. Mirza Dinnayi - helped evacuate the Yazidi's.
(Photo: Ice Bucket Challenge. Credit:Getty Images)
Max Pearson presents a collection of the week's Witness History episodes.
We go underground for a tour of the Moscow Metro, the subterranean transport network built by thousands of Russian workers in the 1930s.
Our guest Mark Ovenden, author of Underground Cities, reveals how the Moscow system influenced many other countries around the world.
Plus, more about a revolutionary new method for transporting medicines that was launched in Ghana in 1974. The cold chain system helped refrigerate vaccines aimed at tackling potentially deadly diseases.
Also, as Paris lifts the curtain on the 2024 Olympics, we go back to the last time the French city hosted the Games - one hundred years ago.
We hear the remarkable story of Somali 400m sprinter Zamzam Farah, and how she became a crowd favourite in the London 2012 Olympics after finishing last in her heat by 27 seconds.
Finally, we meet Shuss - a French cartoon skier and the first Olympic mascot, designed for the 1968 Winter Games.
Contributors: Tatiana Fedorova – a worker on the Moscow Metro. Mark Ovenden - author of Underground Cities. Patience Azuma – vaccinated as a child in Ghana. Dr Kofi Ahmed – chief medical officer. Harold Abrahams – Olympic medallist. Kitty Godfree – Olympic medallist. Zamzam Farah – Somali sprinter. André Thiennot - manufacturer of Shuss merchandise.
(Photo: Underground train station ceiling in Moscow. Credit: Lorenzo Di Cola/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
We hear Turkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriot perspectives on the island's 1974 coup and subsequent invasion. Bekir Azgun, a Turkish-Cypriot writer, remembers the events.
On the 20 July 1974 Captain Adamos Marneros landed the final flight at Nicosia Airport.
Nicoletta Demetriou talks about returning to her family home in 2003.
Then, a Cypriot Olympic sailing hero Pavlos Kontides takes us back to the London 2012 Games.
And finally the 'Godfather of Ayia Napa', DJ Nick Power, tells us how the island became a party destination.
Max Pearson presents this week's Witness History interviews on the history of Cyprus. Our guest is Dr Antigone Heraclidou, senior research associate at CYENS Centre of Excellence in Cyprus.
(Photo: Greek Cypriot soldier killed in the 1974 conflict. Credit: Sean Gallup/Getty Images)
We hear about the law in Brazil which made it illegal for women and girls to play football for 40 years.
Dilma Mendes shares her incredible experience of being arrested numerous times as a child, just for kicking a ball. Our guest, Alexandra Allred, herself a pioneering sportswomen, discusses the discrimination women have faced to break into competitive sport.
Plus, the moment when the 'Queen of Salsa', banned from Cuba by Fidel Castro, was allowed to return to Cuban territory for one performance.
We learn about the brutal crushing of a student movement in 1968 in Mexico City 10 days before the Olympic Games, which ended in dozens being killed.
Also, the start of an environmental movement in Italy in 1988, and the invention of the air fryer. The prototype was nearly as big as a dog kennel and made of wood and aluminium.
Contributors: Dilma Mendes - defied Brazil's ban on women playing football. Alexandra Allred - author of When Women Stood: The Untold History of Females Who Changed Sports and the World. Omer Pardillo Cid - manager and close friend of Celia Cruz. David Huerta - witness to the Mexico City massacre in 1968. Rosa Porcu - a protester against the 'poison ships' docked in Italy in 1988. Suus van der Weij - daughter of Fred van der Weij, inventor of the air fryer.
Max Pearson presents a collection of the week's Witness History episodes.
We hear about the era-defining book Subway Art and how Fight the Power became a protest anthem. Artist curator Marianne Vosloo explains how both street art and hip-hop are linked.
Plus, two stories from Georgia. Firstly, how Stalin carried out his most severe purge in Georgia in 1937, killing thousands of people, and then how after the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991, the newly independent state was thrown into a political and economic crisis.
Finally, we hear from a former Canadian prime minister, on how her party was left with just two seats after the election in 1993.
Contributors: Martha Cooper and Henry Chalfant – authors of Subway Art. Marianne Vosloo - artist curator who works within the field of street art and urban art intervention. Chuck D – Public Enemy frontman. Levan Pesvianidze – Georgian whose grandfather and uncle were both executed. Lamara Vashakidze - a survivor of Georgia’s crisis in 1991. Kim Campbell – former Canadian prime minister. Preston Manning – founder and former leader of Reform.
(Photo: People queing to buy Subway Art. Credit: Jemal Countess/Getty Images)
Max Pearson presents a collection of the week's Witness History episodes.
We hear the story of the largest unfinished Catholic church in the world and the creation of one of the most recognisable characters on the planet.
Plus, an amazing first hand account of the expulsion of German-speakers from Czechoslovakia at the end of the Second World War, the man behind Dignitas, the assisted dying organisation in Switzerland, and the son of a Guatemalan president who was overthrown in an American-backed coup in the 1950s.
Contributors: Mark Burry - architect, who was part of a team trying to piece together Gaudí's vision for the Sagrada Família. Madeleine Kessler - architect from Madeleine Kessler Architecture. Yuko Shimizu - the artist who designed Hello Kitty. Helmut Scholz - a Sudeten German, who was expelled from Czechoslovakia after the Second World War. Ludwig Minelli - the lawyer behind Dignitas, the assisted dying organisation. Juan Jacobo - the son of the former Guatemalan president Jacobo Árbenz.
(Photo: The Sagrada Família, in Barcelona. Credit: Getty Images)
Max Pearson presents a collection of this week’s Witness History episodes from the BBC World Service on the history of travel. Our guest is Dr. Susan Houge Mackenzie, Associate Professor in the Department of Tourism at the University of Otago in New Zealand.
First, we'll hear from the man responsible for the first commercial bungee jump.
Then, the pioneers of low-cost transatlantic flights and luxury cruises describe how they revolutionised travel.
Finally, we hear the remarkable stories of how Cancún and Benidorm transformed into holiday hotspots, involving General Franco, bikinis and excommunication.
Contributors: Dr. Susan Houge Mackenzie - Associate Professor in the Department of Tourism at the University of Otago in New Zealand. AJ Hackett - pioneer of the world's first commercial bungee jump. Edda Helgason - daughter of Sigurdur Helgason who launched Loftleioir Icelandic, the first budget transatlantic airline. Hans Indridason - ran Loftleioir Icelandic's sales and marketing department. Tor Stangeland - Captain of Sovereign of the Seas cruise ship. Juan Enríquez - son of Antonio Enríquez Savignac, who turned Cancún into a world-beating tourist destination. Pedro Zaragoza - former Mayor of Benidorm.
(Photo: Bungee jumping. Credit: Getty Images)
Max Pearson presents a collection of this week’s Witness History episodes from the BBC World Service.
First, we hear about Boko Haram militants driving into Gwoza in north-east Nigeria in 2014, to begin an assault which left hundreds dead.
Next, the Irish shopworkers who went on strike after refusing to handle South African goods.
Then, it’s 25 years since Nato bombed the Serbian state TV station in Belgrade.
Plus, Norway’s biggest industrial disaster.
And, Brazil’s iconic egg-shaped telephone booth.
Contributors:
Ruoyah who lived through the Boko Haram massacre.
Makena Micheni - Associate Lecturer at St Andrews University.
Irish shopworker Mary Manning.
TV technician Dragan Šuković.
Harry Vike and his wife Greta.
Chu Ming Silveira’s son Alan Chu.
(Photo: A woman from Gwoza displaced by the violence. Credit: Reuters/Stringer)
Max Pearson presents a collection of this week’s Witness History episodes from the BBC World Service.
First, we hear how a young Irishwoman called Maureen Flavin Sweeney drew up a weather report that delayed the date of D-Day.
Then, 99-year-old former field medic, Charles Norman Shay, shares his remarkable account of landing on the Normandy beach in France codenamed Omaha on D-Day.
Next, we also talk to Iraqi journalist Muntadhar al-Zaidi who hurled his shoes at the President of the United States.
Plus, we hear about China gifting Taiwan two giant pandas, in a practice known as ‘panda diplomacy’.
Finally, it’s the 40th anniversary of the popular computer game Tetris being invented.
Contributors:
Edward Sweeney – Maureen Flavin Sweeney’s son. Charles Norman Shay – former field medic in the United States Army. Muntadhar al-Zaidi – Iraqi journalist. Eve Chen – curator of the Giant Panda House at Taipei Zoo. Alexey Pajitnov – Russian engineer. Henk Rogers – American businessman.
(Photo: U.S Troops rushing to the Normandy beaches. Credit: Photo12/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
A warning for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander listeners - this programme contains the names and voices of people who have died.
Max Pearson presents a collection of this week’s Witness History episodes from the BBC World Service.
First, the story of Brazil's most wanted, Carlos Lamarca. He was a captain who deserted the army in the 1960s and joined in the armed struggle against the military regime in the country.
Then, Bill Booth - historian of twentieth century Latin America at University College London - joins Max to talk about other revolutionary figures from South America.
Next, the story of Australia's first Aboriginal MP and how he fought for indigenous rights.
Plus, the 90th anniversary of the first ever quintuplets, the 1984 Apple commercial that changed advertising and the 2014 Flint, Michigan water contamination crisis.
Contributors: João Salgado Lopes - friend of Carlos Lamarca. Bill Booth - historian of twentieth century Latin America at University College London. Joanna Lindgren - great niece of Neville Bonner. Jeneyah McDonald - Flint, Michigan resident. Dr Mona Hanna-Attisha – a paediatrician and professor of public health, Michigan. Mike Murray - former Apple marketing manager.
(Photo: Subcomandante Marcos pictured in 2001. Credit: Getty Images)
Max Pearson presents a collection of this week’s Witness History episodes from the BBC World Service.
This week’s programmes are all about the history of footwear.
First we take a trip back to the 1960’s when Brazilians were introduced to a new type of footwear, which went on to become one of the country’s biggest exports.
Plus the story of how a then rookie basketball player called Michael Jordan signed a deal with Nike that revolutionised sports marketing.
We also hear about the thousands of shoes owned by the former first lady of the Philippines, Imelda Marcos.
Then we learn how one family feud led to the creation of two massive sportswear companies, Adidas and Puma.
Finally, we hear how a Czech company revolutionised shoe production and brought affordable footwear to the world.
Contributors: Sergio Sanchez - Author and former employee of Havainas. Sonny Vaccaro - Former Nike executive. Dr Alex Sherlock – Lecturer in the school of Fashion and Textiles at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia and founder of the Footwear Research Network. Sigi Dassler – Daughter of Adi Dassler the founder of Adidas. Mick Pinion – Former Bata engineer.
(Photo: Air Jordan Original. Credit: Getty Images)
Max Pearson presents a collection of this week’s Witness History episodes from the BBC World Service.
This week, we hear how nuclear testing changed politics in French Polynesia.
Plus, the story of how the FBI caught Ana Montes, the spy known as the ‘Queen of Cuba’.
We also talk to Jewish and Palestinian people about the moment the state of Israel was proclaimed in 1948.
Finally, we tell the unlikely story of how a heavy metal rock band emerged during the violent years of Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq.
Contributors: Antony Géros - President of the Assembly of French Polynesia KDee Aimiti Ma'ia'i – doctoral candidate at University of Oxford Pete Lapp – former FBI agent Hasan Hammami Arieh Handler Zipporah Porath Firas Al-Lateef – bass player
(Photo: Antony Géros. Credit: Getty Images)
This week, how more than one billion people living in India were given a unique digital ID during the world's largest biometric project. The Aadhaar scheme was launched in 2009 but it wasn't without controversy. Our guest, digital identity expert Dr Edgar Whitley, tells us about the history of ID schemes around the world.
Plus, the Spanish doctor whose pioneering surgery helped millions of people to get rid of their glasses and see more clearly. And why East Germany's thirst for caffeine in the 1980s led to an unusual collaboration with Vietnam.
Also, the story behind one of the most famous royal photographs ever taken – Princess Diana sitting alone on a bench in front of the Taj Mahal in 1992. The man who took the image tells us more.
And finally, how a Ghanaian athlete, Alice Annum, earned the nickname ‘Baby Jet’ after her medal-winning success in the 1970 Commonwealth Games.
Contributors: Nandan Nilekani - former chairman of the Unique Identification Authority of India Dr Edgar Whitley - digital identity expert at the London School of Economics Dr Carmen Barraquer Coll – daughter of ophthalmologist Jose Ignacio Barraquer Moner Siegfried Kaulfuß – East German official in charge of coffee production in Vietnam Anwar Hussein – royal photographer Alice Annum – retired Ghanaian athlete
(Photo: Scanning fingerprints for Aadhaar registration. Credit: David Talukdar/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
Max Pearson presents a collection of this week’s Witness History episodes from the BBC World Service.
This week we hear the story of Rogelio Goiburu, who has dedicated his life to finding the victims of Alfredo Stroessner's dictatorship in Paraguay, including the remains of his own father. Our expert Dr Francesca Lessa talks about other enforced disappearances in South America.
Plus, we hear about how, in February 2014, ordinary people got to see inside Mezhyhirya, the extraordinarily extravagant home of Ukraine's former president.
Also, a shocking psychological experiment from the 1960s. Just to warn you, this includes original recordings of the experiments which listeners may find disturbing.
The programme also includes the breakthrough moment when the Channel Tunnel was finally completed linking England and France beneath the sea and, finally, the story behind one of the world's most popular self-help books.
Contributors: Rogelio Goiburu - dedicated to finding the victims of Stroessner's Paraguay Dr Francesca Lessa - Associate Professor in International Relations of the Americas at University College London (UCL) Denys Tarakhkotelyk - from the Mezhyhirya estate Graham Fagg - the Englishman who broke through the Channel Tunnel Donna Dale Carnegie - daughter of Dale Carnegie, author of How to Win Friends and Influence People (Photo: Alfredo Stroessner. Credit: STR/AFP via Getty Images)
It’s been thirty years since the first fully democratic elections in South Africa, which saw the African National Congress take power in 1994.
But two years before that historic moment, white South Africans had to vote in a referendum that would decide whether or not to usher in a multi-racial government. We hear from President FW de Klerk’s then communications officer about how they helped “close the book on apartheid.”
Then we journey back to 1976 and hear about the Soweto Uprising, a student led protest against the enforced study of Afrikaans. Bongi Mkhabela who helped organise the peaceful march, tells us how it came to a bloody and tragic end.
Plus we take a look at the pivotal role played by women and girls in the lead up to the 1994 elections. Journalist and researcher Shanthini Naidoo tells us why women’s work and activism in the ANC is so often overlooked.
We hear from Oliver Tambo’s son about his father’s return to South Africa after 30 years in exile.
We also hear about the long overdue return of Sarah Baartman’s remains to South Africa, after over 190 years being kept in Europe, where she suffered horrific abuse while she was alive. This programme contains discriminatory language.
And finally, we learn about one of South Africa’s biggest popstars Brenda Fassie, from her friend, rival and admirer Yvonne Chaka Chaka.
Contributors: David Stewards – President FW de Klerk’s former communications advisor Bongi Mkhabela- Student organiser of the Soweto uprising Shanthini Naidoo- Journalist and researcher on women during apartheid Dali Tambo- Son of Oliver Tambo Diana Ferrus – Poet who helped bring Sarah Baartman home Yvonne Chaka Chaka- South African popstar
(Photo: Nelson Mandela after winning the election in 1994. Credit: Getty Images)
Max Pearson presents a collection of this week’s Witness History episodes from the BBC World Service.
It’s 10 years since the world’s deadliest outbreak of Ebola started in West Africa. We hear from a survivor and discuss the legacy of the epidemic with the BBC's global health reporter Tulip Mazumdar.
Plus, the first World War Two battalion to be led by an African-American woman. Major Charity Adams’ son tells her story.
We hear about the group of men arrested in Egypt in 2001 at a gay nightclub who became known as the Cairo 52.
We also hear about the avalanche on Mount Everest which killed 16 sherpas carrying supplies 10 years ago.
Finally, the train service between India and Bangladesh that lay dormant for 43 years which rumbled back into life in 2008.
Contributors:
Yusuf Kabba – an Ebola survivor from Sierra Leone Tulip Mazumdar - the BBC's Global Heath reporter. Stanley Earley – son of Major Charity Adams Omer (a pseudonym) - arrested and imprisoned at a gay club in Cairo Lakpa Rita Sherpa - helped recover bodies after the avalanche on Mount Everest in 2014 Dr Azad Chowdhury – on the inaugural Friendship Express
(Photo: Liberian Health Minister Burnice Dahn washes her hands at a holding centre for Ebola patients in 2014. Credit: Getty Images)
Max Pearson presents a collection of this week’s Witness History episodes from the BBC World Service.
It's 30 years since Edvard Munch’s painting, The Scream, was stolen from the national gallery in Oslo, Norway. We hear from the man who helped to recover it.
Our expert guest is historian and author, Susan Ronald, who explores the history of art heists in the 20th century.
Plus, a first hand account from Kampala terror attacks in 2010 and the mystery of St Teresa of Avila's severed hand.
Finally, we hear about the last World War II soldier to surrender. Hiroo Onoda was an Imperial Japanese Army intelligence officer who spent nearly 30 years in the Philippine jungle, believing World War Two was still going on.
Contributors: Kuddzu Isaac - DJ and Kampala terror attack survivor Charley Hill - Scotland Yard art detective and private investigator Susan Ronald - historian and author Sister Jenifer - the Mother Superior of the Church of Our Lady of Mercy, Ronda Hiroo Onoda - Japanese WWII soldier Christos and Ioanna Kotsikas - residents of Thessaly, Greece
(Photo: The Scream. Credit: Getty Images)
Max Pearson presents a collection of this week’s Witness History episodes from the BBC World Service.
It has been 50 years since Abba won the 1974 Eurovision Song Contest, so we're exploring Swedish history. Also in 1974, Sweden became the first country in the world to offer paid parental leave that was gender neutral. One father who took the leave tells us about this pioneering policy. We hear from one of the inventors of Bluetooth. The technology was named after Harald Bluetooth, a Viking king. Our expert guest is Eva Krutmeijer, Swedish science writer and co-author of the book ' Innovation, the Swedish Way’.
Plus, the invention of the three-point safety belt for cars, that is estimated to have saved more than one million lives around the world, and the story behind Sweden’s Cinnamon Bun Day. Finally, 1974 was just the beginning for the Swedish quartet, Abba, who shared their name with a herring company. By the end of the decade, they were one of most recognisable music acts of the 20th century. Contributors: Per Edlund - one of the first fathers in his town to take split paid parental leave Sven Mattison - one of the inventors of Bluetooth Eva Krutmeijer - Swedish science writer and co-author of the book 'Innovation, the Swedish Way' Gunnar Ornmark - stepson of Nils Bohlin who invented the three-point safety belt for cars Kaeth Gardestedt - who came up with the idea of Sweden's Cinnamon Bun Day Görel Hanser - manager of Abba (Photo: Abba in 1974. Credit: Anwar Hussein/Getty Images)
It's 75 years since the founding of Nato. In 1949, a group of 12 countries formed the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to block the expansion of the Soviet Union.
Professor Sten Rynning, the author of Nato: From Cold War to Ukraine, talks about some of the most significant moments in Nato's history.
It's 30 years since the beginning of the Rwandan genocide. We hear from one of the survivors, Antoinette Mutabazi. This programme contains disturbing content.
Plus, Riyaz Begum reflects on Britain's Mirpuri migration, Janet Heimlich, daughter of Dr Henry Heimlich talks about the origins of the Heimlich Manoeuvre and Adam Trimingham, Brighton based journalist and nudist David Johnson recall the arrival of Britain's first nudist beach.
(Photo: British Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin signs the North Atlantic Treaty. Credit: Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
Max Pearson presents a collection of this week’s Witness History episodes from the BBC World Service.
To mark 50 years since the discovery of the Terracotta Army, we're exploring modern Chinese history.
We hear from the man who helped to modernise the Chinese language by creating a new writing system. It's called Pinyin and it used the Roman alphabet to help simplify Chinese characters into words.
Our expert guest is the writer, Mark O'Neill, whose book 'The Man Who Made China a Literate Nation' forms the basis of a great discussion about historical language changes throughout history.
Plus, a first hand experience of life in labour camps during Mao Zedong’s cultural revolution and the women forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese Imperial army during the 1930s. This programme contains disturbing content.
Contributors: Mark O'Neill - writer Zhou Youguang - linguist Jingyu Li - victim of Mao Zedong's labour camps Peng Zhuying - survivor of sexual slavery Yuan Zhongyi - archaeologist Dr Li Xiuzhen - archaeologist Simon Napier-Bell - manager of Wham
(Photo: Terracotta Army. Credit: Getty Images)
First, we go back to 1992, when off the coast of Ireland, a Swiss geology student accidentally discovered the longest set of footprints made by the first four-legged animals to walk on earth.
They pointed to a new date for the key milestone in evolution, when the first amphibians left the water 385 million years ago.
Dr Frankie Dunn, who is a senior researcher in palaeobiology at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History in the UK, then dives into landmark discoveries in geological history.
Plus, the story of Winifred Atwell, a classically-trained pianist from Trinidad who was admired by Queen Elizabeth II and Sir Elton John. She became one of the best-selling artists of the 1950s in the UK.
Then, how the Guarani, an indigenous language of South America, was designated an official language in Paraguay’s new constitution, alongside Spanish.
Also, the lesser known last eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 1944.
Finally, Indian badminton player Rajeev Bagga who has won 14 gold medals at the Deaflympics. In 2001, he was given the ‘Deaflympian of the Century’ award.
Contributors: Iwan Stössel - Swiss Geologist. Dr Frankie Dunn - Senior Researcher in Palaeobiology at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History in the UK. David Olivera - Paraguayan Linguist and Anthropologist. Angelina Formisano - Evacuated from the village of San Sebastiano during the 1944 eruption of Mount Vesuvius. Rajeev Bagga - Indian Badminton Player.
(Picture: Illustration of a tetrapod from the Late Devonian period. Credit: Christian Jegou/Science Photo Library)
Max Pearson presents a collection of this week’s Witness History episodes from the BBC World Service.
We first hear about Uruguay’s tale of David v Goliath - when a tobacco giant took South America's second-smallest country to court over its anti-smoking laws.
Uruguay’s former public health minister María Julia Muñoz describes the significance of the ban and its fallout.
And we shed some light on the wider history of the use of tobacco, its long and controversial history, with Dr Sarah Inskip, a bio-archaeologist at the University of Leicester in the UK.
Plus, the largest search operation in aviation history - ten years on, little is known of the fate of MH370 and the 239 people on board.
Also, Sister Rosemary Nyirumbe on how her sewing school in northern Uganda served as a place of rehabilitation for child soldiers escaping Joseph Kony’s Lord's Resistance Army.
Then, the Carnation Revolution - how Europe’s longest-surviving authoritarian regime was toppled in a day, with barely a drop of blood spilled.
Finally, in August and September 1939, tens of thousands of children began to be evacuated from Paris. Colette Martel, who was nine at the time, describes how a pair of clogs made her feel welcome.
Contributors: María Julia Muñoz - Uruguay’s former public health minister. Dr Sarah Inskip - A bio-archaeologist at the University of Leicester in the UK. Ghyslain Wattrelos - Whose wife and two children were on flight MH370. Adelino Gomes - Witness of the 1974 Carnation Revolution. Colette Martel - Child evacuee in World War Two.
(Photo: An anti-tobacco installation in Montevideo. Credit: Reuters/ Pablo La Rosa)
Max Pearson presents a collection of this week’s Witness History episodes from the BBC World Service. We first hear about a bloodless war between Denmark and Canada, that involved whisky.
In 1984, the two nations were disputing the ownership of the tiny Hans Island, just off the coast of Greenland. It might be the friendliest territorial dispute ever.
We hear from Tom Hoyem and Alan Kessel, politicians on either side.
And we have historian Ditte Melitha Kristensen, from the National Museum and Archives of Greenland, to shed some light on the history of the country.
Plus, how Peruvian archaeologist Walter Alva discovered the richest tomb ever found in the America’s: the final resting place of the ancient ruler, the Lord of Sipan.
Also, we go back to the 1960s when 1,500 Torah scrolls appeared at a synagogue in London.
And a Crimea double-bill. We go back to 2014 when Russia annexed the Ukranian peninsula, and then back to the 1980s, when it was used as a holiday camp for children across the Soviet Union.
Contributors: Tom Hoyem— Minister for Greenland in Denmark. Alan Kessel— Assistant Deputy Minister for Legal Affairs in Canada. Ditte Melitha Kristensen — Greenland historian. Walter Alva— Archaeologist. Phillippa Bernard — Founder member of Westminster Synagogue. Maria Kim Espeland — One of the thousands of children who visited the Artek holiday camp.
(Photo: Greenland. Credit: Thomas Traasdashi/Ritzau Scanpix/AFP via Getty Images)
Max Pearson presents a collection of this week’s Witness History episodes from the BBC World Service. We hear about the famous ski resort, Whistler Blackcomb.
In 2003, the venue won its bid to host the Winter Olympic Games for the first time. Hugh Smythe, known as one of the ‘founding fathers’ of Whistler, has been sharing his memories of the mountain. We also have former Winter Olympian and BBC presenter, Chemmy Alcott, to walk us through the long history of skiing.
Plus, how the tiny island nation of American Samoa suffered the worst defeat ever in international football.
Also, the shocking creation of a two-headed dog by a Soviet scientist.
The murder of transgender woman in Honduras during a military coup in 2009.
And, a long-running dispute over the final resting place of Christopher Columbus’ ashes.
Contributors: Hugh Smythe — One of the ‘founding fathers’ of Whistler. Chemmy Alcott — Former Winter Olympian and TV presenter. Nicky Salapu—American Samoa goalkeeper. Igor Konstantinov — Consultant cardiothoracic surgeon. Claudia Spelman — LGBT activist. Angelita Baeyens — Human rights lawyer. Samuel Bisono — Tour guide and historian.
(Photo: Whistler Blackcomb ski resort. Credit: James MacDonald/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Max Pearson presents a collection of this week’s Witness History episodes from the BBC World Service.
We hear about the Juliet Club in Verona, Italy. The club has been replying to mail addressed to Shakespeare’s tragic heroine, Juliet since the early 1990s.
Professor Lisa Bitel talks about the traditions of Valentine’s Day.
Plus, how the small Irish town of Gort became known as ‘Little Brazil’ because it's home to so many Brazilians. The World War Two escape line that fooled the Nazis and the stadium disaster that shocked Egypt.
And the story of the food supplement used by soldiers during the Nigerian civil war that became a drink enjoyed in more than 70 countries around the world.
Contributors: Giovanna Tamassia - daughter of Giulio Tamassia, one of the founders of the Juliet Club. Professor Lisa Bitel - Professor of History & Religion at the University of Southern California, USA. Lucimeire Trindade – resident of Gort, Ireland. Keith Janes – son of captured a British soldier. Christine Lepers – daughter of a French resistance fighter. Mahmoud Al-Khawaga – former footballer with Zamalek. Peter Rasmussen – creator of the drink Supermalt.
(Photo: Giovanna Tamassia from the Juliet Club. Credit: Leonello Bertolucci/Getty Images)
Max Pearson presents a collection of this week’s Witness History episodes from the BBC World Service telling stories about inspirational black women.
In 1973, the Battle of Versailles pit up-and-coming American designers using black models against the more traditional French. We hear from Bethann Hardison, one of those black models, about how the capital of couture, Paris, became the stage for this defining moment in the history of fashion.
Professor Adrienne Jones, a fashion expert at the Pratt Insitute in New York, explains the cultural significance of the event, and what changed in the world of fashion afterwards.
Plus, the story of the UK’s first luxury Afro-Caribbean hair salon, Splinters, which opened as recently as the 1980s. Charlotte Mensah, known as the ‘Queen of the ‘fro’, recalls what it was like to work there. Part of her story includes an account racial bullying.
Also, archive interviews tell the story of how Rosa Parks defied racist segregation laws in the United States. It contains outdated and offensive language.
We hear how a Nigerian lawyer took on the country’s Sharia courts to overturn a death sentence.
And the tragic story of Lucha Reyes, one of Peru’s most beloved singers.
Contributors: Bethann Hardison- a model who competed in the Battle of Versailles. Prof Adrienne Jones- from the Pratt Institute in New York. Hauwa Ibrahim- one of the first female lawyers from northern Nigeria. Polo Bances- saxophonist who played alongside Lucha Reyes.
(Photo: Bethann Hardison and Armina Warsuma arriving in France. Credit: Photo by Michel Maurou/Reginald Gray/WWD/Penske Media via Getty Images)
Max Pearson presents a collection of this week’s Witness History episodes from the BBC World Service.
We hear about Cyberia - the first commercial internet café which opened in London in 1994. Director of the Oxford Internet Institute at the University of Oxford, Professor Vicki Nash, talks us through other notable landmarks in the internet’s history. Plus how the Covid N95 mask was invented by a scientist from Taiwan in 1992.
Also how Brazilian theologian Leonardo Boff was punished for his writing on liberation theology. Staying with Brazil, we hear how poor rural workers occupied land owned by the rich, resulting in violent clashes in 1980.
And the world's first global seed vault, buried deep inside a mountain on an Arctic island.
Contributors: Eva Pascoe – a founder of Cyberia internet café Prof Vicki Nash – Director of the Oxford Internet Institute at the University of Oxford Peter Tsai – inventor of N95 mask Leonardo Boff – Brazilian theologian Maria Salete Campigotto – Landless Workers Movement protestor Dr Cary Fowler – founder of Doomsday seed vault
(Photo: People using Cyberia in 1994. Credit: Mathieu Polak/Sygma/Sygma via Getty Images)
Max Pearson presents a collection of this week's Witness History episodes from the BBC World Service all about figures branded as traitors.
In 1939 Wang Jingwei, once a national hero in China, signed an agreement with Japanese invaders which made his name synonymous with the word ‘Hanjian’, a traitor to China. But Pan Chia-sheng’s memories of living under Wang Jingwei’s government in Nanjing tell a very different story.
Our guest Ian Crofton, author of Traitors and Turncoats, explains the nuances involved in our historic understanding of traitors.
Also, the fascist Norwegian politician Vidkun Quisling blamed for convincing the German dictator Adolf Hitler to invade Norway in 1940. Norwegian journalist Trude Lorentzen explains the story with an account she recorded from Quisling’s Jewish neighbour, Leif Grusd.
And, the story of the former Broadway showgirl, known as Axis Sally, who broadcast antisemitic Nazi propaganda on German State Radio during World War Two, told through the archives.
Plus, the Polish colonel, Ryszard Kuklinski, code-named 'Jack Strong', who passed Soviet military secrets to the CIA that changed the tide of the Cold War.
And, the Hungarian Sándor Szűcs, famous for playing in the country’s star football team, who was executed in 1951 for trying to defect from the communist regime.
Contributors: Pan Chia-sheng - on Wang Jingwei. Ian Crofton - author of Traitors and Turncoats. Trude Lorentzen - Norwegian journalist on Vidkun Quisling. Aris Papas - one of the agents who received intelligence from Ryszard Kuklinski.
Erzsi Kovács’ story is told using an archive interview he gave in 2011 to Hungarian journalist Endre Kadarkai on the Arckép programme, on Zuglo TV.
(Photo: Mildred Gillars, known as 'Axis Sally', on trial for treason in 1949. Credit: Corbis via Getty Images)
Max Pearson presents a collection of this week’s Witness History episodes from the BBC World Service.
We’re going wild for animals this week. We find out how the Ibadan Zoo became one of Nigeria’s biggest tourist attractions during the 1970s. Our guest Harriet Ritvo, professor of history at MIT, looks back across the centuries to reveal the fascination that humans have always had for animals. And more on the environmental campaigner who became known as Lady Tarzan for her fight against illegal logging in the forests of India.
Plus, we hear from a journalist tortured in Iran's notorious Evin Prison in the wake of the 2009 protests against the Islamic regime. Also, why hundreds of thousands of Moroccans were ordered into the Spanish Sahara by their king. And finally, more on the Bolivian president who went on hunger strike to try to save his country.
Contributors: Peaches Golding - wife of zoologist Bob Golding Professor Harriet Ritvo – professor of history at MIT Marcela Siles - daughter of former Bolivian president Hernán Siles Zuazo Seddik Maaninou - TV cameraman Francis Gillies – North Africa expert Maziar Bahari - journalist Jamuna Tudu – environmentalist nicknamed ‘Lady Tarzan’
(Photo: Imade the gorilla at Ibadan Zoo. Credit: bobgolding.co.uk)
Max Pearson presents a collection of this week's Witness History episodes from the BBC World Service.
In 2001, the Netherlands became the first country to legalise gay marriage. Four couples were chosen to take part in a collective wedding at midnight which was broadcast on TV. Hélène Faasen and Anne-Marie Thus talk about the wedding they thought they'd never have.
Our guest Lauren Moss, the LGBT & Identity Correspondent at BBC News tells us about the history of gay marriage. Also, the man who risked his life to make the audio recordings which blew open one of the biggest corruption scandals in Spain's recent history.
Then we hear the story of the 1970s defection from the Soviet Union of a world-famous ballerina. Plus, the mystery surrounding the fate of the last king of France's son and the man who really does believe that laughter is the best medicine.
Contributors: Hélène Faasen & Anne-Marie Thus - the first lesbian couple to get married legally. Lauren Moss - LGBT & Identity Correspondent at BBC News. José Luis Peñas - the man that made secret recordings that revealed the Gurtel scandal. Prof Jean Jacques Cassiman - Belgian geneticist. Deborah Cadbury - historian. Dr Madan Kataria – founder of World Laughter Day.
(Photo: The couple arrive to be married at the Amsterdam City Hall. Credit: Marcel Antonisse/ANP/AFP via Getty Images)
Max Pearson presents a collection of this week's Witness History episodes from the BBC World Service. Our guest is Barbara Waibel, author of a book on the Hindenburg and Director of Archives at the Zeppelin Museum in Friedrichshafen, Germany. She tells us about the history of airships.
We begin with some remarkable archive of the Hindenburg airship disaster in 1937. Then British scientist Jonathan Shanklin describes how he discovered the hole in the ozone layer in 1985.
In the second half of the programme we hear from a NASA scientist who worked on the Voyager space probe which took the famous 'Pale Blue Dot' photo of Earth. A physicist from Quebec remembers when a solar flare plunged the Canadian province into darkness. And we hear the exciting and dangerous story of the invention of the wingsuit.
Contributors: Barbara Waibel - Author and Director of Archives at the Zeppelin Museum in Friedrichshafen, Germany. Jonathan Shanklin - Scientist who discovered the hole in the ozone layer. Candice Hansen - NASA scientist. Aja Hruska - Physicist from Quebec. Jari Kuosma - Inventor of the commercial wingsuit.
(Photo: Hindenburg airship. Credit: Corbis via Getty Images)
Max Pearson presents a collection of this week’s Witness History episodes from the BBC World Service.
This week, we look at the disputed history of pad Thai with food writer Chawadee Nualkhair.
We also hear from former fruit exporter Don Turner on why his family changed the name of the Chinese gooseberry to the kiwi fruit.
Our expert guest is food historian, Prof Katarzyna Cwiertka, who highlights other moments in history when food and politics combined.
We also have an interview with Thomas Chatenier, the president of Nutella, about the origins of the chocolate hazelnut spread.
Plus, we talk about the Flavr Savr tomato - the world's first genetically-engineered food.
And finally we hear from Ken Hom, the chef who introduced Chinese cookery to TV audiences.
Contributors: Chawadee Nualkhair – Thai food writer. Don Turner – former chief executive of kiwi exporter, Turners and Growers. Katarzyna Cwiertka - food historian and Professor of Modern Japan Studies at Leiden University in the Netherlands. Thomas Chatenier - the president of Nutella. Roger Salquist – former CEO of the biotech company which was responsible for the Flavr Savr tomato. Ken Hom – Chinese-American chef and author.
(Photo: Pad Thai. Credit: Getty Images)
Max Pearson presents a collection of this week’s Witness History episodes from the BBC World Service.
This week, we hear from Lumepa Hald who survived the devastating tsunami that hit Samoa in 2009 but suffered a tragic loss.
Our expert guest, Prof Tiziana Rossetto, looks back at some of the worst tsunamis in history and how they have shaped our landscapes.
Plus we talk to Caster Semenya, the gold medallist who faced questions over her gender at the 2009 World Championships in Berlin.
There’s also an interview with Peter Greste, one of three Al Jazeera journalists sentenced to seven years in jail in Egypt.
We also look at the mystery surrounding the death of Chilean poet Pablo Neruda with his driver, Manuel Araya.
And finally we talk to singer Dafydd Iwan, the “bad boy of Welsh politics”, who was arrested for defacing an English sign. He wanted official recognition for the Welsh language.
Contributors: Lumepa Hald – survivor of the tsunami that hit Samoa in 2009. Tiziana Rossetto - Professor of Earthquake Engineering at University College London, UK. Caster Semenya – world champion runner who faced questions over her gender. Peter Greste – journalist sentenced to seven years in prison in Egypt. Manuel Araya – driver of Chilean poet Pablo Neruda. Dafydd Iwan – singer who campaigned for official recognition the Welsh language.
(Photo: Devastation at a beach in Samoa after the 2009 tsunami. Credit: Getty Images)
Max Pearson presents a collection of this week's Witness History episodes from the BBC World Service. Our guest is Dr Ongama Mtimka, lecturer in South African politics at the Nelson Mandela University. He tells us about Mandela's life and legacy 10 years on from his death.
We start with with Mandela's daughter, Makaziwe, describing her relationship with her father and planning his funeral. Then, the brother of Emanuela Orlandi describes his lifelong mission to unravel the mystery of her disappearance in Rome in 1983.
The second half of the programme has a Russian flavour. A relative of Tsar Nicholas II describes the murder of the Romanov royal family in 1918. Then a Russian journalist describes attending the Romanov's controversial reburial 80 years later. We finish with one of Russia's greatest poets, Anna Akhmatova.
Contributors: Dr Ongama Mtimka - Lecturer in South African politics at the Nelson Mandela University. Dr Phumla Makaziwe Mandela - Nelson Mandela's daughter. Pietro Orlandi - Emanuela Orlandi's brother. Olga Romanov - Great niece of Tsar Nicholas II. Lilia Dubovaya - Journalist who was at the reburial of the Romanovs. Era Korobova - Art historian and expert on Anna Akhmatova.
(Photo: Nelson Mandela. Credit: Tom Stoddart Archive/Getty Images)
Max Pearson presents a collection of this week’s Witness History episodes from the BBC World Service.
We hear about two of the most influential computer games of the 1990s with their creators. John Romero was one of the developers of Doom and talks about the concept of a martian military base populated by zombie soldiers. Coder Jan Tian describes how his devotion to working on the football game FIFA 94 landed him in hospital. Our guest, The Guardian newspaper's video games editor Keza MacDonald, looks back on games which had a global impact.
Also how in 1945, 10,000 brains were collected from dead psychiatric patients in Denmark. It is now thought to be the world’s largest brain bank. We also find out how a group of right-wing army officers seized power in Greece in 1967 to stop the election of a social democratic government led by veteran politician George Papandreou.
And 30 years on since the cult French film La Haine was released, its director Mathieu Kassovitz describes how it caught the attention of high profile politicians with its criticism of policing in France.
Contributors: John Romero – Doom developer Jan Tian – FIFA 94 coder Keza MacDonald – video games editor, The Guardian Martin Wirenfeldt Nielsen – pathologist George Papandreou Jnr – former Greek Prime Minister Mathieu Kassovitz – film director
(Photo: Brains stored in plastic buckets at the University of Southern Denmark. Credit: BBC)
Max Pearson presents a collection of this week’s Witness History episodes from the BBC World Service.
This week, the bird that defied extinction. In 1969, a Peruvian farmer Gustavo Del Solar received an unusual assignment - finding a bird called the white-winged guan that had been regarded as extinct for a century.
The American author and conservationist Michelle Nijhuis is this week's guest. She talks about some of the most interesting attempts in modern history to save animals on the brink of extinction.
Also this week, the world's first solar powered home, when Tanzania adopted Swahili and when the world went crazy for Cabbage Patch Kids.
This programme has been updated since its original broadcast. It was edited on 6 December 2023.
Contributors: Rafael Del Solar - son of conservationist Gustavo Del Solar Michelle Nijhuis - author and conservationist Meredith Ludwig - friend of Cabbage Patch Kids creator Martha Nelson Thomas Peter Baxter and George Kling - scientists Walter Bgoya - author in Tanzania Andrew Nemethy - lived in the world's first solar powered house
(Photo: A whooping crane. Credit: Getty Images)
Max Pearson presents a collection of this week’s Witness History episodes from the BBC World Service.
This week, we’re looking at the birth of a new African nation – Zambia - in 1964, and find out how the country got its name. We also learn more about life after independence with our guest Dr Alfred Tembo, head of history of the University of Zambia.
Elsewhere, two survivors of a series of terrifying gun attacks in Mumbai talk about their experiences. And there’s a look back to 2003, when the worst heatwave in centuries caused thousands of deaths across Europe, and led to a health crisis in Paris.
Plus, we hear extracts from the lost memoirs of Manchester United goalkeeper Les Sealey. He recorded them before his death and the tapes were discovered years later.
And finally, the invention of bubble tea, a creation that would change the tea drinking world. The first cup was sold in a tea shop in Taiwan in 1987.
Contributors:
Mulenga Kapwepwe – daughter of Simon Kapwepwe, fighter for Zambia’s independence Dr Alfred Tembo – head of history, University of Zambia Devika Rotawan – survivor of gun attack in Mumbai Arun Jadhav – policeman and survivor of gun attack in Mumbai Dr Patrick Pelloux - emergency doctor at St Antoine Hospital in Paris Les Sealey – former Manchester United goalkeeper Liu Han-Chieh – tea leaf seller and shop owner Lin Xiuhu – developer of bubble tea
(Photo: Celebrations after Zambian election, 1991. Credit: Walter Dhladhla/AFP via Getty Images)
Max Pearson presents a collection of this week’s Witness History episodes from the BBC World Service. Our guest is Professor Jenni Barclay from the University of East Anglia in the UK. She tells us about some of the most significant volcanic eruptions in history.
We start with the eruption of Eyjafjallajokull in 2010, which caused air travel to stop across Europe. Then, memories of the Bolivian Water War in 2000.
In the second half of the programme, we hear how the EpiPen was invented by Sheldon Kaplan. Plus, how Rosalind Franklin’s research helped determine the structure of DNA. Finally, the discovery of the ancient city of Thonis-Heracleion, underwater off the coast of Egypt.
Contributors: Sigrun Hreinsdottir - scientist who saw the eruption of Eyjafjallajokull. Jenni Barclay - professor of volcanology at the University of East Anglia, UK. Oscar Olivera - union official who led Bolivian Water War protests and negotiations. Michael Kaplan - son of Sheldon Kaplan, inventor of the EpiPen. Michael Mesa - colleague of Sheldon Kaplan. Jenifer Glyn - sister of scientist Rosalind Franklin, who helped discover the structure of DNA. Franck Goddio - underwater archaeologist who discovered Thonis-Heracleion.
(Photo: Eyjafjallajokull erupting in 2010. Credit: Reuters/Lucas Jackson)
Max Pearson presents a collection of this week’s Witness History episodes from the BBC World Service.
We hear from Zoheb Hassen, one half of a sibling duo from Pakistan who topped the charts in countries all over the world with their dancefloor filler, Disco Deewane.
Our guest is BBC radio presenter and Pakistani music fan Raess Khan. He talks about how Pakistani pop music evolved from Zoheb’s success.
Entertainment star Debbie McGee, who is best known for being the assistant and wife of British magician Paul Daniels talks about escaping from Iran at the start of the revolution in 1978.
In 2004 a supermarket fire in Paraguay killed more than 300 people. It was the country’s biggest peacetime disaster. One of the survivors, Tatiana Gabaglio tells her story.
Plus, how one of Bosnia's most famous landmarks, the historic bridge in Mostar, was destroyed by Croat guns during the Bosnian war in 1993
Finally, the unlikely friendship of a hippo and a tortoise following the tsunami in 2004.
Contributors: Zoheb Hassen – former popstar Raess Khan – BBC presenter and Pakistani pop fan Debbie McGee – British celebrity Tatiana Gabaglio – supermarket fire survivor in Paraguay Mirsad Behram – journalist Eldin Palata – cameraman Dr Paula Kahumbu – wildlife conservationist
(Photo: Nazia and Zoheb Hassen in 1982. Credit: BBC)
Max Pearson presents a collection of this week's Witness History episodes from the BBC World Service. Our guest is Tony Kapcia, Emeritus Professor at the University of Nottingham's Centre for Research on Cuba. He tells us about the history of Cuban foreign policy.
We start with Aleida Guevara's memories of being sent from Cuba to provide medical aid in the Angolan Civil War during the 1980s. Then, the French scientist Francoise Barre-Sinoussi explains how HIV was discovered in 1983.
In the second half of the programme, we hear how Australian scientist David Warren invented the black box flight recorder in 1962, which made flying safer. An Ecuadorian politician explains how she tried to save the country's Yasuní National Park. And the actress Jane Seymour recounts how she played the role of Freddie Mercury's bride at the Fashion Aid event in 1985.
Contributors: Tony Kapcia - Emeritus Professor at the University of Nottingham's Centre for Research on Cuba. Dr Aleida Guevara - daughter of Che Guevara. Francoise Barre-Sinoussi - scientist who helped identify HIV. Jenny and Peter Warren - children of David Warren, inventor of the black box. Bill Schofield - former colleague of David Warren, inventor of the black box. Ivonne A-Baki - Ecuadorian politician tasked with saving the Yasuní National Park.
(Photo: Aleida Guevara with her father, Che, and Fidel Castro in 1963. Credit: Imagno via Getty Images)
Max Pearson presents a collection of this week’s Witness History episodes from the BBC World Service.
We hear from activist and actor Memet Ali Alabora on how his social media post contributed to the civil unrest following the Gezi Park protests in Turkey in 2013.
Our guest, Selin Girit who covers Turkey for BBC World Service, talks to us about Turkey's important position between Europe and Asia. We also learn about the fighting in 1980 between the left and right-wing groups that led to Turkey’s military taking control of the country. Vice Admiral Isik Biren, who was an official in the defence ministry, and a former student activist, Murat Celikkan recount their different memories of the coup.
We hear more about Turkey’s geographic connection from Harvey Binnie who was involved with the design of the first Bosphorus suspension bridge in 1973. And from Zimbabwe, economist Professor Gift Mugano, on how the country’s annual inflation rate was 89.7 sextillion percent in 2008. And finally the story of how a Nigerian Airways flight from Lagos to Abuja was hijacked by four teenagers calling themselves the Movement for the Advancement of Democracy (MAD). Obed Taseobi was a passenger on that flight in 1993.
Contributors: Memet Ali Alabora – activist and actor Selin Girit – BBC World Service reporter Vice Admiral Isik Biren – former official in the Turkish defence ministry Murat Celikkan – former student activist Harvey Binnie – member of design team for the Bosphorus bridge Professor Gift Mugano – economist Obed Taseobi – Nigerian Airways passenger
(Photo: Protesters clash with Turkish police near Gezi Park in Istanbul, June 2013. Credit: Getty Images)
Max Pearson presents a collection of this week’s Witness History episodes from the BBC World Service.
We hear about Osmondmania! The moment in 1973 when teenage fans of American heartthrobs, The Osmonds, caused a balcony at Heathrow to collapse.
Also, we find out about the first peace walk in Cambodia and how it united a country torn apart by war.
Plus, the birth of Lagos Fashion Week and how it put Nigerian design on the global map.
Contributors: Donny Osmond. Josephine McDermott, BBC producer and presenter. Yeshua Moser-Puangsuwan, organiser of Cambodia’s first peace walk. Parul Akhter, a sewing machinist who survived the Rana Plaza building collapse. Oscar Maynez, a forensic scientist who used to work in the Mexican border town of Ciudad Juarez where hundreds of young women were kidnapped or killed. Paula Flores, the mother of one of the murdered girls. Omoyemi Akerele who organised the first Lagos Fashion Week.
(Photo: Donny Osmond greets fans at Heathrow airport. Credit: George Stroud/Express/Hulton Archive via Getty Images)
Max Pearson presents a collection of this week’s Witness History episodes from the BBC World Service.
We hear from Kwasi Okoh about how his mother Theodosia Okoh designed Ghana’s flag after it became the first country in sub-Saharan Africa to gain independence.
Our guest, former diplomatic and foreign affairs editor, Tim Marshall, explains the importance of flags for national identity and their changing purpose through history. We also learn about the moment in 1966 when Kwame Nkrumah, one of Africa's most famous leaders, was ousted from power in Ghana.
Plus, how in 2013, India's Supreme Court made a landmark ruling aimed at transforming the lives of acid attack survivors. It followed a campaign led by Laxmi Agarwal who at the age of 15 was burned when acid was thrown at her.
And the artist Yinka Shonibare discusses how ‘Nelson’s Ship in a Bottle’ exhibited in London’s Trafalgar Square was the world’s largest ship in a bottle.
And finally, how Kimani Maruge became the oldest man to enroll at a primary school in Kenya.
Contributors: Kwasi Okoh - son of Theodosia Okoh Tim Marshall - former diplomatic and foreign affairs editor for Sky News Chris Hesse - Ghanaian filmmaker Laxmi Agarwal - acid attack survivor Yinka Shonibare - creator of Nelson’s Ship in a Bottle Jane Obinchu - Kimani Maruge’s former teacher
(Photo: Ghanaian football fans wave their national flag. Credit: Getty Images)
Max Pearson presents a collection of this week’s Witness History episodes from the BBC World Service.
To mark 50 years since the global oil crisis, we’re focusing on oil - from discovery to disaster. We hear from Dr Fadhil Chalabi, then the deputy secretary general of Opec (Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) about what happened during the 1973 crisis.
Our guest Helen Thompson, Professor of Political Economy at Cambridge University, explains why oil became the lifeblood of industrial economies during the last two centuries. We also learn how Kazakhstan signed ‘the deal of the century’ to become a fossil fuel powerhouse thanks to the Tengiz Oil Field.
Plus, why in 1956, not everyone welcomed the discovery of oil in the Nigerian village of Oloibiri. We find out more about the devastating impact of one of the world’s largest oil spills - when the Amoco Cadiz tanker ran aground off the coast of France in 1978. The wreck released more than 220,000 tonnes of crude oil into the sea.
And finally, how an indigenous community in the Ecuadorian Amazon fought a court battle to protect their land from oil drilling – and won.
Contributors: Dr Fadhil Chalabi – former deputy secretary general of Opec Professor Helen Thompson - Professor of Political Economy at Cambridge University Bruce Pannier - Central Asia news correspondent Chief Sunday Inengite – chief of Oloibiri, Nigeria Marguerite Lamour – former secretary to Alphonse Arzel, the mayor of Ploudalmézeau in France Jose Gualing - former Sarayaku president Ena Santi - Sarayaku community leader
(Photo: Oil rig. Credit: Fairfax Media via Getty Images via Getty Images)
Max Pearson presents a collection of this week’s Witness History episodes from the BBC World Service. We hear about the sinking of a migrant boat off Lampedusa in 2013 which was one of the Mediterranean’s worst shipwrecks. Also, we find out about Wally Hendrickson, the US physicist who volunteered to be dropped into the front line of the Vietnam War to remove fuel rods from a reactor. Plus, the opening of the world's first cat cafe in Taipei, Taiwan, in 1998.
Contributors: Amnasager Araya who survived the Lampedusa tragedy after being rescued by Vito Fiorino. Annalisa Camilli, correspondent for Internazionale magazine. Wally Hendrickson who removed the fuel rods from the reactor in Vietnam. André Turcat, the French pilot of Concorde’s maiden flight. The star of the telenovela, Kassandra, Coraima Torres, and Tony Paez who distributed the show. Tracy Chang, founder of the first cat cafe in Taiwan.
(Photo: A woman on a boat heading for Lampedusa. Credit: Getty Images)
Max Pearson presents a collection of this week’s Witness History episodes from the BBC World Service.
We hear about the people with disabilities who were sterilised in Germany following an order in 1933, passed by the then Chancellor Adolf Hitler.
Also, we find out about the first man to descend into the “Gates of Hell”, the Darvaza Crater, in Turkmenistan.
Plus the story behind the vuvuzela which was dubbed the “world’s most annoying instrument”.
Contributors: Helga Gross who was sterilised in Germany as part of the Nazis’ eugenics order. This is an archive interview from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Dr Susanne Klausen, Julia Gregg Brill Professor of Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies at the Pennsylvania State University. Campaigner Emma Bonino who fought for legal abortion in Italy. Explorer George Kourounis who was the first person to descend into the Darvaza Crater, in Turkmenistan. Paramedic Daniel Ouma who helped people injured in the Westgate Mall terror attack, in Nairobi, in Kenya, in 2013. Freddie 'Saddam' Maake who claims to have invented the vuvuzela.
(Photo: Adolf Hitler. Credit: Gamma-Keystone via Getty Images)
Max Pearson presents a collection of this week's Witness History episodes from the BBC World Service. It's thirty years since the Oslo Accords were signed. This agreement in 1993 aimed to bring about peace between the Israelis and Palestinians. So this week, we're bringing you stories from Israeli and Palestinian history. We hear about attempts at peace - the secret talks behind the Oslo Accords, and President Bill Clinton's failed attempt to end the conflict at Camp David. Plus, one of the most dramatic sieges of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that took place in a church.
We also hear from a Palestinian and an Israeli who were there when rioting broke out in 2000, after the Israeli opposition leader, Ariel Sharon, made a visit to the al-Aqsa Mosque compound. And finally a hope of peace with the orchestra, made up of young people from both sides of the conflict, which performed a concert in the Palestinian city of Ramallah.
Contributors: Mona Juul – Norwegian diplomat who was part of the team that planned and orchestrated the meetings which resulted in the signing of the Oslo Accords. Yolande Knell - Middle East Correspondent for BBC News. Gamal Helal - American diplomatic interpreter and policy adviser. Khaled Zeghari - Palestinian cameraman. Zalman Shoval - former Israeli ambassador to Washington. Carolyn Cole - photojournalist. Father Amjad Sabbara - Franciscan friar. Tyme Khelefi - former violinist with the West-Eastern Divan orchestra. Daniel Cohen - former violinist with the West-Eastern Divan orchestra.
(Photo: Israeli soldiers run towards the Church of the Nativity. Credit: Musa Al-Shaer/AFP via Getty Images)
Max Pearson presents a collection of this week's Witness History episodes from the BBC World Service.
We hear from Chilean politician Hermógenes Pérez de Arce, who helped oust President Allende in 1973. We also hear from the widow of folk singer Victor Jara, who was killed during the military coup.
Our guest is Dr Camila Vergara, who is a historian and journalist from Chile, and a senior lecturer at the University of Essex Business School in the UK. She tells us more about the aftermath of the Chilean coup, and its lasting impact.
Eva Franchell speaks about her friend, the Swedish foreign minister Anna Lindh who was murdered in 2003.
In the second half of the programme, campaigner Frank Heweston shares his experience on Greenpeace’s Arctic voyage to disrupt drilling on a newly built oil rig and we hear from a friend and promoter of Zanzibar’s most famous musician, Bi Kidude. Contributors: Camila Vergara - historian and journalist from Chile, and senior lecturer at the University of Essex Business School. Hermógenes Pérez de Arce – Chilean politician. Joan Jara – widow of Victor Jara. Eva Franchell – Anna Lindh’s former press secretary and best friend. Maryam Hamdani - friend and promoter of Bi Kidude.
(Photo: President Salvador Allende. Credit: Bettman/Getty Images)
Max Pearson presents a collection of this week's Witness History episodes from the BBC World Service. Our guest is Jean H. Lee, an American journalist who has covered both North and South Korea extensively. Jean is also the co-host of the BBC World Service podcast, The Lazarus Heist. She tells us more about the relationship between the two countries.
The programme begins with the historic meeting between North and South Korea's leaders almost 50 years after the Korean War. We hear from Sameh Elbarky who was in Cairo's Rabaa al-Adawiya Square on the day the army killed hundreds of protestors following a military coup.
In the second half of the programme, British black activists recount how they protested against racism within the local bus company in Bristol in 1963. One of the first Chinese students to arrive in the US in the early 1980s following the Cultural Revolution shares her experience. Finally, how the Mexican island of Guadalupe was saved from being destroyed by hungry goats.
Contributors: Jean H. Lee - American journalist and the co-host of the BBC's The Lazarus Heist podcast. Professor Chung-in Moon - South Korean special delegate. Sameh Elbarky - survivor of the Rabaa massacre. Paul Stephenson - spokesperson for the Bristol Bus Boycott. Roy Hackett - Bristol Bus Boycott protestor. Zha Jianying - Chinese American writer. Professor Exequiel Ezcurra - conservationist.
(Photo: North and South Korean leaders meet at the summit in 2000. Credit: Reuters)
Max Pearson presents a collection of Witness History stories from the BBC World Service, this week we are focusing on Irish history.
In 2006, Ireland’s economic boom, known as the Celtic Tiger, ended. It meant thousands of people, like Michelle Burke, were left devastated as house construction stopped.
In 1959, Tralee, in Ireland, hosted a festival to promote the town and build Irish connections around the world. The Rose of Tralee is now one of Ireland’s oldest and largest festivals.
Veteran RTE broadcaster and author, Joe Duffy, walks us through the significance of the Celtic Tiger.
At Easter 1916, a small army of Irish rebels attempted to start a revolution against British rule. They held out for more than a week against a massive British military response, but the insurrection ultimately failed.
Also, how electrification lit up rural Ireland for the first time, despite concerns about its potential dangers.
And how a group of women fought against a sexist tradition, that prevented them from taking a dip in a popular swimming spot.
Contributors: Michelle Burke - lived through the Celtic Tiger boom and bust. Alice O’Sullivan - first Rose of Tralee winner. Joe Duffy - broadcaster and author. Mary Dorcey - poet, writer and women’s rights activist.
(Photo: Deserted 'ghost estate' in Ireland. Credit: Tim Graham/Getty Images)
A compilation of this week's Witness History episodes. Gerald Clarke, the author of Get Happy: The Life of Judy Garland, speaks to Max Pearson about the legacy of the stage and screen actress who died in 1969.
We also look at how a chance encounter led to the return of two of the looted Benin Bronzes, ancient artworks which were among thousands stolen from Benin City by the British Army in 1897.
And we head back to 2008, when a nine-year-old boy tripped over a fossil that would lead to one of the most important discoveries in the history of human evolution.
Contributors:
Author Gerald Clarke John Kelsch from the Judy Garland Museum Production assistant Rosalyn Wilder Retired police officer Tim Awoyemi Matt Berger who discovered the Australopithecus sediba fossil Hedayat Matine-Daftary, grandson of Mohammed Mossadeq
(Photo: Judy Garland during a press conference in 1963. Credit: Central Press/Getty Images)
Max Pearson presents a collection of this week’s Witness History stories from the BBC World Service. Journalist Claude Angeli discovered French President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing received diamonds from a depraved African emperor, which contributed to him losing the presidential election in 1981. How Bosnia’s small Jewish community helped people from all sides of the conflict, during the siege of Sarajevo in the early 1990s. The story of the gang of thieves, who held up a British Royal Mail train on its journey from Glasgow to London in August 1963. Plus Jean-Michel Basquiat, a young black graffiti artist in the 1980s took the New York art world by storm. His paintings were selling for huge sums of money, but he died before the end of the decade. And the rise and fall of self-made businesswoman Brownie Wise, who inspired an army of US housewives to sell Tupperware at parties. Contributors: Journalist Claude Angeli Journalist Pauline Bock Former vice president of the Jewish community Jakob Finci Author Bob Kealing Journalist Reginald Abbiss Patti Astor, friend of Jean-Michel Basquiat
(Photo: French President Valery Giscard d'Estaing and Jean-Bédel Bokassa in Bangui, March 1975. Credit: Getty Images)
Max Pearson presents a collection of this week’s Witness History episodes from the BBC World Service.
We hear about a prehistoric discovery in India - a nest full of dinosaur eggs found in 1982. Plus, why a Mongolian dinosaur skeleton became the centre of a 2012 court battle in a case known as United States V One Tyrannosaurus Bataar.
Our guest, palaeobiologist Neil Gostling reveals how newly-uncovered dinosaurs are named, and tells us which fossilised beast was the first to be christened.
José Mujica recounts his journey from young revolutionary in the 1960s and 70s to becoming Uruguay's president in 2009. Plus, we learn more about the deaf children in Nicaragua who invented their own sign language. And find out why a treehouse built beside the Berlin Wall during the Cold War became a symbol of resistance.
Contributors: Professor Ashok Sahni - palaeontologist Associate Professor Neil Gostling - palaeobiologist Dr Bolortsetseg Minjin - paleontologist José Mujica - former president of Uruguay Professor Judy Shepard-Kegl - linguist Mehmet Kahlin – son of Osman Kahlin
(Photo: Tyrannosaurus Bataar skeleton, 2016. Credit: Johannes Eisele/AFP via Getty Images)
Max Pearson presents a collection of this week's Witness History episodes from the BBC World Service. Our guest is Ozoz Sokoh, Nigerian food writer and author of the Kitchen Butterfly food blog, who tells us about the history of West African food.
The programme begins with the story of Mr Bigg's, Nigeria's answer to McDonald's. Then, we hear about the 1960 coup against the Emperor of Ethiopia, Haile Selassie, from his grandnephew.
In the second half of the programme, a Jewish survivor tells us about the Nazi occupation of Greece from 1941-1944. Two witnesses tell us about Pope John Paul II's ill-fated visit to Nicaragua in 1983. And a Pakistani man recounts how he accidentally created the first personal computer virus in 1986.
Contributors: Ozoz Sokoh - Nigerian food writer and author of the Kitchen Butterfly food blog. Emmanuel Osugo - Mr Bigg's employee. Dr Asfa-Wossen Asserate - grandnephew of Haile Selassie. Yeti Mitrani - Jewish survivor of Nazi occupation of Greece. Nancy Frazier O’Brien - Catholic News Service reporter. Carlos Pensque - Nicaraguan protestor. Amjad Farooq Alvi - software developer.
(Photo: West African food. Credit: Craig F. Walker/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)
Max Pearson presents a compilation of stories from this week’s Witness History episodes.
In the autumn of 1945, World War II surrender ceremonies took place across the Japanese Empire. Thousands of people watched the incredible moment Japanese generals handed over their swords in China's Forbidden City in Beijing.
Historian James Holland, talks about the ritual and significance of a surrender.
Also, the first Barbie doll was sold in 1959. It took Ruth Handler, who created it, years to convince her male colleagues that it would sell.
The plastic creation sold 350,000 in the first year and went on to take the world by storm selling millions. It’s now even been turned into a live action film starring Margot Robbie.
Contributors: John Stanfield, signed surrender declaration documents on behalf of the British at the end of World War II James Holland, historian, writer, and broadcaster Ramona Reed on her father Dean Reed who became known as ‘Red Elvis’ Vents Krauklis, a demonstrator in the Latvian capital, Riga in 1991 Professor V. Craig Jordan, who helped bring the drug tamoxifen to the world’s attention Ruth and Elliot Handler from a BBC documentary broadcast in the 1990s
(Photo: Barbie in her various incarnations. Credit: Ian Waldie/Getty Images)
Max Pearson presents a selection of this week’s Witness History stories.
In 1999, Aibo: the world's first robot dog, hit the shops in Japan and sold out in just 20 minutes.
We hear from Toshitada Doi who spent six years on the project when he worked at Sony. Plus we hear from Dr Ella Haig about the development of artificial intelligence.
Japanese software developer Shigetaka Kurita created the first emoji in 1999.
Valerie Hunter Gordon, from England, invented disposable nappies in 1947 after the birth of her third child. We hear from Valerie’s son, Nigel Hunter Gordon.
Hungarian journalist László Bíró was sick of smudging the ink from his fountain pen and so he invented the ballpoint pen in 1938.
Finally, a Hungarian architect Ernő Rubik invented what's known as the Rubik's Cube.
Contributors:
Toshitada Doi on developing Aibo: The world's first robot dog Dr Ella Haig, Reader in Artificial Intelligence, in the School of Computing at the University of Portsmouth in the UK Japanese software developer Shigetaka Kurita, who created the first emoji Nigel Hunter Gordon, the son of Valerie Hunter Gordon, on disposable nappies Hungarian journalist László Bíró, the inventor of the ballpoint pen Hungarian architect Ernő Rubik, the inventor of the Rubik's Cube
(Photo: The original Aibo. Credit: Jun Sato/WireImage via Getty Images)
Max Pearson presents a selection of this week’s Witness History stories.
In 1972, tourists arrived in the Maldives for the first time. We hear from one of the people who made it happen, plus analysis of the growth of tourism around South East Asia with Ploysri Porananond.
Also, on the 75th anniversary of the National Health Service in the UK, one of the first doctors shares his experience.
Lawyers for both the prosecution and defence of concentration camp guard John Demjanjuk, discuss his trial.
The election in India, of what was to be the longest serving democratically elected government in the world.
Finally, a night out to remember, with Princess Diana, Freddie Mercury and Kenny Everett.
Contributors:
Ahmed Naseem on bringing tourism to the Maldives Ploysri Porananond, head of the centre for tourism research at Chiang Mai University in Thailand Dr John Marks on the formation of the NHS in 1948 Lawyer Yoram Sheftel, who acted in defence of John Demjanjuk Lawyer Eli Gabay, who prosecuted John Demjanjuk Mohammad Salim, former Communist Party of India (Marxist) leader Cleo Rocos, on her night out with Princess Diana, Freddie Mercury and Kenny Everett
(Photo: Early tourists enjoy the Maldives in the 1970s Credit: Kurumba)
Max Pearson presents a collection of this week’s Witness History stories.
In 1995, the collapse of the Sampoong Department Store in the South Korean capital, Seoul, killed and injured hundreds of people. Explaining the impact it had on urban planning is Dr Youngmi Kim, senior lecturer in Korean Studies at the University of Edinburgh.
Also, the speech President John F Kennedy made at the height of the Cold War on 26 June 1963. It galvanised the world in support of West Berliners who had been isolated by the construction of the Berlin Wall.
From the archive, Dr Jean Jacques Mueyembe and Dr David Heymann worked to bring the first documented outbreak of Ebola under control in 1976.
Plus, Budapest's communist statue 'graveyard' which opened in 1993.
Finally, when Lady Gaga accepted an MTV Video Music Award in a dress made entirely out of beef.
Contributors:
Sun Minh Lee on the Sampoong Department Store disaster Dr Youngmi Kim, senior lecturer in Korean Studies at the University of Edinburgh Gisela Morel-Tiemann on the Ich Bin Ein Berliner speech Dr Jean Jacques Mueyembe and Dr David Heymann on Ebola Judit Holp on Memento Park Franc Fernandez on Lady Gaga's meat dress
(Photo: US military troops and South Korean army soldiers look for survivors in the rubble of the collapsed Sampoong Department Store. Credit: Getty Images)
Max Pearson presents a collection of this week’s Witness History stories.
Ahmed Mohamed Hassan, a fighter pilot in the Somali air force defied orders to bomb civilians in 1988. Explaining more about the Somali civil war and its legacy is BBC Monitoring's regional analyst Beverly Ochieng.
Also, the demonstrations in East Germany that triggered martial rule in 1953.
From the archive, Sam King recalls arriving in England on the Empire Windrush in 1948, one of 802 pioneering Caribbean migrants.
Plus, the 1994 raid on a gay nightclub in Melbourne, Australia, where more than 400 people were strip-searched and detained.
Finally, in 1971 Alan Shepard, the commander of Apollo 14 became the first and only person to play golf on the moon.
Contributors: Ahmed Mohamed Hassan on being a fighter pilot in the Somali air force Beverly Ochieng, BBC Monitoring's Horn Of Africa analyst Helmut Strecker on his recollections of the protests in East Germany Sam King on the Empire Windrush Gary Singer on the raid of Tasty nightclub Laura Shepard Churchley on her father Commander Alan Shepard
(Photo: Refugees in Somalia's civil war. Credit: Getty Images)
Max Pearson presents a collection of this week’s Witness History stories.
We focus on some of the world’s best known photographs - and the photographers who took them.
We find out why Lee Miller was in Hitler’s bath in the dying days of World War Two; and historian Dr Pippa Oldfield discusses the women who were the pioneers of war photography.
Also, Sir Don McCullin tells the story behind one of his most famous images of the Vietnam War.
Plus, more on the party pictures that shone a light on an unseen Africa and how the biggest names in jazz came together for one immortal portrait.
Finally, the first African American woman to have her photographs snapped up by New York’s Museum of Modern Art.
Contributors: Antony Penrose, Lee Miller's son and biographer Sir Don McCullin, photographer Dr Pippa Oldfield, photo-historian Manthia Diawara, filmmaker Jonathan Kane, son of photographer Art Kane Ming Smith, photographer
(Photo: Grace Jones. Studio 54, New York, 1970s. Credit: Ming Smith)
Max Pearson presents a collection of this week’s Witness History and Sporting Witness stories.
We hear about the Inuit children taken away from their homes and culture, to be educated in Canadian cities. Adamie Kalingo tells his story about being placed with a foster family in Ottawa in 1964. Dr Raven Sinclair explains how Adamie’s story was part of a wider program of resettling Indigenous children.
Also, the crash at Le Mans which killed 80 people in 1955; the ceremony in 2005, organised by campaigner Ilguilas Weila, to free 7,000 slaves in Niger; plus, the forensic artist whose reconstructions have helped solve murders.
Finally, we find out whether a man can ever beat a horse in a race.
Contributors: Adamie Kalingo, taken from his Inuit community in 1964 Dr Raven Sinclair, retired professor of social work John Fitch, racing driver Ilguilas Weila, anti-slavery campaigner Richard Neave, forensic artist Huw Lobb, long distance runner Gordon Green, creator of the Man v Horse race
(Photo: Adamie Kalingo in 2023. Credit: Adamie Kalingo)
Max Pearson presents a collection of this week’s Witness History episodes focusing on Mount Everest, the highest mountain in the world.
It's 70 years since Edmund Hillary with Sherpa Tenzing Norgay, became the first people to reach the summit of Everest in 1953.
We hear about some of the earliest, tragic attempts to scale the mountain, and from those who've blazed a trail up the slopes for others to follow.
Contributors: Peter Hillary - Sir Edmund Hillary's son. Jamling Tenzing Norgay - Tenzing Norgay's son. Bachendri Pal - the first Indian woman to scale Mount Everest. Michael Groom - a survivor of the tragic expedition in 1996 when a storm struck the mountain. Jochen Hemmleb - an original member of the team that discovered George Mallory's remains.
(Photo: Sherpa Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hillary after their return from Everest. Credit: Bettmann)
Max Pearson presents a collection of this week's Witness History episodes from the BBC World Service.
We hear how a shocking photo from a Bosnian concentration camp stunned the world, what it's like to be in a tornado and the heroic clown who helped after an earthquake in Peru.
Plus the 1980 military coup in Suriname and the moment in the 1960s when African de-colonisation might have led to a United States of Africa.
This programme contains descriptions of sexual violence.
(Photo: Fikret Alic in a Bosnian refugee camp. Credit: ITN/Shutterstock)
Max Pearson presents a collection of this week’s Witness History episodes from the BBC World Service.
We hear about the German children who were evacuated to camps in the countryside to avoid the bombs of World War Two. You may find some of the content distressing.
Also we find out about the execution of Flor Contemplacion
Plus the creation of the 3000 km Te Ararora trail in New Zealand, the Dambusters raid and the story behind the popular children’s book, Pippi Longstocking.
Contributors: Gunter Stoppa and Klaus Reimer - German evacuee camp residents. This was taken from archive recordings from "Haus der Geschichte der Bundersrepublik Deutschland" in Bonn. Beate Muller - Professor of German Studies and Cultural History at Newcastle University, England Geoff Chapple who lobbied for the creation of the Te Araroa trail in New Zealand. Russel Contemplacion - Flor Contemplacion’s daughter Edre Olalia - Flor Contemplacion’s Lawyer George "Johnny" Johnson - the last survivor of the Dambusters squadron. Karin Nyman – Daughter of author Astrid Nyman
(Photo: Flor Contemplacion. Credit: Russel Contemplacion)
Max Pearson presents a collection of this week's Witness History episodes from the BBC World Service.
We hear about the Allies' campaign in North Africa in the Second World War in 1943.
Ahead of the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II in 2025, the BBC is trying to gather as many first-hand accounts from surviving veterans as possible, to preserve for future generations.
Working with a number of partners, including the Normandy Memorial Trust and the Royal British Legion, the BBC has spoken to many men and women who served during the war. We are calling the collection World War Two: We were there.
We also have the story of the last flight out of the old international Hong Kong airport in 1998. The approach to the airport was known as 'the Kai Tak heart attack' because of it's location between the mountains and the city.
As well as the end of the uprising in the Jewish Ghetto in Warsaw, the sinking of the 'Indian Titanic' and the United States' bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade.
Contributors: Peter Royle - British Army Captain in the Royal Artillery. Dr Helen Fry - author and historian, specialising in the Second World War. Simha "Kazik" Rotem - a Jewish fighter in the Warsaw Ghetto uprising. Arvind Jhani and Tej Mangat - survivors of the sinking of the SS Tilawa. Captain Kim Sharman - the pilot of the last passenger flight out of Kai Tak.
(Photo: Tunis victory parade, 20 May 1943. Credit: Peter Royle)
Max Pearson presents a collection of this week's Witness History episodes from the BBC World Service.
We hear about the Scottish students who removed the 'Stone of Destiny' from Westminster Abbey in London. Former King Simeon II of Bulgaria explains how he went from child King to Prime Minister of his country. Also, why the body of Oliver Cromwell was dug up and executed in the UK in 1661. The son of Jean-Bédel Bokassa explains why his father proclaimed himself Emperor of the Central African Republic. Plus the story of the King found under a car park in England.
Professor Cindy McCreery speaks to Max about royal thefts and repurposing of regal items.
Contributors: Ian Hamilton, student who removed the 'Stone of Destiny. Cindy McCreery, Associate Professor in History at the University of Sydney. Charles Spencer, historian. Dr Gabriel Heaton, specialist at Sotheby's auction house. Simeon Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, former King and former Prime Minister of Bulgaria. Jean-Charles Bokassa, son of Jean-Béddel Bokassa. Dr Richard Buckley OBE, leader of the team which dug up Richard III's remains.
(Photo: Jean-Béddel Bokassa after he crowned himself Emperor Credit: Getty Images)
Max Pearson presents a collection of this week's Witness History episodes from the BBC World Service. We hear about Althea McNish, the Trinidadian artist who designed fabric for Queen Elizabeth II.
Former Vogue editor Suzy Menkes on the success of the fashion celebration, the Met Gala.
The Guatemalan Bishop, Juan Gerardi, killed in his home, after presenting the conclusions of a major investigation into abuses committed during the country's civil war.
We remember Harry Belafonte, with a look back at his historic duet with Petula Clark.
Plus the fight by the BBC to televise Queen Elizabeth II's coronation in 1953.
Contributors: Rose Sinclair, Lecturer in textile design at Goldsmiths, University of London. Gavin Douglas, Programme Leader and Senior Lecturer in fashion design at Manchester Metropolitan University. Suzy Menkes, former Vogue International Editor. Ronalth Ochaeta, former head of the Catholic Church’s human rights office in Guatemala. Steve Binder, TV producer. Lady Jane Rayne Lacey, a lady in waiting at Queen Elizabeth II's coronation in 1953.
(Photo: Althea McNish Credit: Getty Images)
Max Pearson presents a collection of this week's Witness History episodes from the BBC World Service.
We hear about the invention of the labradoodle, the first dog in space and how a Yorkshire terrier called Smoky became the world's first therapy dog.
Author Mackenzi Lee talks about her book, The History of the World in Fifty Dogs. She discusses Napoleon Bonaparte's turbulent relationship with pugs and the first guide dogs in America.
Plus, the guide dog who saved its owner's life during the 9/11 terror attacks and the man who dressed up as a dog to protest life in post-Soviet Russia.
Contributors:
Wally Conron - dog breeder. Mackenzi Lee - author. Michael Hingson - 9/11 terror attacks survivor. Professor Victor Yazdovsky - Russian immunologist. Oleg Kulik - Russian conceptual artist. Adrian Brigham - friend of American World War II veteran Bill Wynne.
(Photo: Estie the labradoodle and Lola the cockapoo. Credit: Reena Stanton-Sharma)
Max Pearson presents a collection of this week's Witness History and Sporting Witness episodes from the BBC World Service.
We hear about the unearthing of a mass grave in Sernyky, Ukraine, in 1990, and when the Boston Marathon was the target of a terror attack in 2013.
This programme contains distressing details.
Contributors: James Bulgin - head of public history at the Imperial War Museum in Britain. Richard Wright - archaeologist. Jonathan Dimbleby - broadcaster. Edward Deveau - Watertown Chief of Police. Charles Barnett - managing director of Aintree Racecourse. Gary Anderson - designer.
(Photo: David L. Ryan/The Boston Globe. Credit: Getty Images)
Max Pearson presents a collection of this week's Witness History episodes from the BBC World Service.
We hear about the lengths one woman goes to to escape Eritrea, how Zumba was invented by accident and how a giant peace statue on a Japanese island, crumbled into a ghostly ruin.
Plus the arguments then, and the arguments still over the Good Friday Peace Agreement for Northern Ireland, and a picnic for peace that breached the Iron Curtain.
This programme contains descriptions of sexual violence.
Contributors: Martin Plaut - Senior Research Fellow at University of London Semhar Ghebreslassie - Eritrean graduate Beto Perez - Choreographer and inventor of Zumba Jane Morrice - Yes campaigner in 1998 referendum on the Northern Ireland Good Friday Agreement Lee Reynolds - No campaigner in 1998 referendum on the Northern Ireland Good Friday Agreement Yusuke Natsukawa - Local resident of Awaji Island Goro Otsubo - IT worker who enjoys visiting weird sites around Japan Walburga Habsburg Douglas - an organiser of the Pan-European picnic
(Photo: Zumba creator Beto Perez. Credit: Getty Images)
Max Pearson presents a collection of this week's Witness History episodes from the BBC World Service.
We hear about Vietnam's manicure godfather, how Bengaluru became India's Silicon Valley and how the first ever photograph from a mobile phone was sent.
Plus, the popularity of theoretical physicist Prof Stephen Hawking's book, A Brief History of Time, and the windmill that revolutionised wind power.
Contributors:
Tuong Vu - Professor of Political Science at the University of Oregon. Kien Nguyen - Wife of Minh Nguyen. Narayana Murthy - Founder of Infosys. Philippe Kahn - Software engineer and owner of world's first mobile phone photo. Peter Guzzardi - Publisher and editor. Britta Jensen - Teacher.
(Photo: Minh and Kien Nguyen outside beauty school in California. Credit: Kien Nguyen)
Max Pearson presents a compilation of stories about the history of film and cinema from around the world, including the longest running film in Indian cinema, the man who lived in an airport for 18 years and the ambitious release of the orca from the movie, Free Willy.
Plus, the real life escape from Alcatraz and the incredible story of Vietnamese movie star, Kieu Chinh.
Contributors:
Dr Ranita Chatterjee - Senior Lecturer in Film and Television Studies at the University of Exeter. Kajol - Indian actress. Kieu Chinh - Vietnamese actress. Andrew Donkin - Biographer of Mehran Karimi Nasseri. Jolene Babyak - Lived on Alcatraz Island. Dave Phillips - Founder of the Free Willy Keiko Foundation.
(Photo: People queuing for DDLJ in Mumbai. Credit: Getty Images)
A compilation of stories marking the 20th anniversary of the American led invasion of Iraq in March 2003.
Caroline Hawley, who was the Baghdad correspondent for the BBC at the time, speaks to Max Pearson about reporting on Iraq.
Contributors:
Lubna Naji - schoolgirl in Baghdad when the war broke out. Yasir Dhannoon - became a refugee when he fled Iraq. General Vincent Brooks - first revealed the playing cards to help US troops identify the most-wanted members of Saddam Hussein's government. Muwafaq al Rubaie - was asked to help to identify Saddam Hussein after he was captured. Banwal Baba Dawud - brother to Ammo Baba.
(Photo: US Marines help Iraqis take down a Saddam Hussein statue in Baghdad. Credit: RAMZI HAIDAR/AFP via Getty Images)
Max Pearson presents a compilation of stories celebrating women who made history including a ground-breaking, African American science fiction writer and the first presidential hopeful in Mexico.
Plus the UN's first ever all-female peacekeeping unit, a woman who helped bring peace to Northern Ireland and a child goddess in Nepal.
Contributors:
Dr Brenda Stevenson - Hillary Rodham Clinton Chair in Women’s History at St John’s College, Oxford University. Nisi Shawl - friend of Octavia Butler. Rosario Piedra - daughter of Rosario Ibarra. Nick Caistor - journalist. Seema Dhundia - member of India’s Central Reserve Police Force. Lesley Pruitt - author of The Women in Blue Helmets. Monica McWilliams - one of the architects of the Good Friday Agreement. Chanira Bajrycharya - former child goddess in Nepal.
(Photo: March for International Women's Day in Mexico City in 2023. Credit: Getty Images)
Max Pearson presents a collection of this week's Witness History episodes from the BBC World Service. Our guest is Dr Uta Rautenberg from the University of Warwick in the UK, an expert on homophobia in Nazi camps.
Rudolf Brazda recounts his experience of being a gay man in a Nazi concentration camp, symbolised by the pink triangle he was forced to wear on his uniform.
Then, we hear first-hand accounts of the Indigenous American protest at Wounded Knee 50 years ago, and the assassination of Serbia's Prime Minister, Zoran Djindjic, in 2003.
We finish with two lighter stories: the world's most remote museum on the island of South Georgia and the first ever underwater sculpture park in the Caribbean.
Contributors: Dr Uta Rautenberg - University of Warwick. Rudolf Brazda - Nazi concentration camp survivor. Russell Means - former National Director of the American Indian Movement. Gordana Matkovic - former Serbian cabinet minister. Jan Cheek - South Georgia Museum trustee. Jason deCaires Taylor - creator of Grenadian underwater sculpture park.
(Photo: Marchers carry a pink triangle at a Gay Pride event in London. Credit: Steve Eason/Hulton Archive via Getty Images)
Max Pearson presents a collection of this week's Witness History episodes from the BBC World Service. Our guest is Philippe Sands, Professor of the Public Understanding of Law at University College London, who tells us about the history of ethnic tensions in Mauritius.
The programme begins with Kaya a Mauritian musician whose death sparked three days of rioting. Then, we hear from John Huckstep who was interned by the Japanese when living in China during World War Two.
In the second half of the programme, we tell the story of how Semtex was invented, and the debate about where the German capital should be after reunification.
Finally, the man who made the Queen appear to jump out of a helicopter tells us how he did it, with the help of corgis, a clothesline, the Queen's dresser and of course James Bond.
Contributors: Veronique Topize - Kaya's widow. Cassam Uteem - Former President of Mauritius. Phillippe Sands - Professor of the Public Understanding of Law at University College London. Jurgen Nimptsch - Former Mayor of Bonn. Wolfgang Schauble - Member of German Bundestag. John Huckstep - Held as a child at an interment camp in China. Stanislav Brebera - Brother of chemist who invented Semtex. Frank Cottrell-Boyce - Writer.
(Photo: Mural of Kaya. Credit: BBC)
Max Pearson presents a collection of this week's Witness History episodes from the BBC World Service. Our guest is Ilaria Favretto, Affiliate Professor at Kingston University in London, who tells us about the history of workers' protests across Europe.
The programme begins with a former union leader describing Italy's 'Hot Autumn' of 1969 when protests erupted. Then, we hear the archaeologist Howard Carter's remarkable account of opening the burial chamber of Tutankhamun, the Egyptian Pharaoh, 100 years ago.
In the second half of the programme, we hear about the creation of Pokémon, and the coronation of Denmark's first Queen in 600 years. Finally, an American woman tells us how she became a Muay Thai boxing champion.
Contributors: Ilaria Favretto - Affiliate Professor at Kingston University in London. Renzo Baricelli - Italian union leader. Howard Carter - British archaeologist. Akihito Tomisawa - Pokémon developer. Kjeld Olesen - Danish politician. Sylvie Von Duuglas-Ittu - Muay Thai boxer.
It has been 10 years since Pope Benedict XVI announced his shock resignation. It was the first time in almost 600 years that a pope had stepped down.
In this programme, we hear stories about the history of the papacy, including how a pope is chosen, the inception of Vatican II and what happens when a pope dies.
Contributors:
Giovanna Chirri - former Ansa journalist Catherine Pepinster - former editor of Catholic newspaper, The Tablet Cormac Murphy-O'Connor - Cardinal John Strynkowski - Monsignor Beniamino Stella - Cardinal Don Davide Tisato - former professional footballer Felice Alborghetti - journalist from the Centro Sportivo Italiano
(Photo: Benedict XVI and Pope Francis. Credit: Getty Images)
The launch of the first black music station in Europe - the Dread Broadcasting Corporation in London in 1981 - and why Czechoslovakia split into the Czech Republic and Slovakia in 1993.
Plus the assassination of Burundian President Melchior Ndadaye, the Columbia space shuttle disaster and the bombing of the Palestine Post.
Contributors:
Michael Williams - former DBC station manager Carmella Jervier - DJ Dr Caroline Mitchell - Professor of Radio at the University of Sunderland Jean-Marie Ngendahayo - former minister in Burundi Václav Klaus - former prime minister of the Czech Republic Vladimír Mečiar - former prime minister of Slovakia Mordechai Chertoff - former foreign editor of the Palestine Post Admiral Hal Gehman - Chairman of the Columbia Accident Investigation Board
(Photo: Radio Caroline Pirate Radio ship. Credit: Getty Images)
Max Pearson presents a collection of this week's Witness History episodes from the BBC World Service. Our guest is Chiara Sangiorgio, Death Penalty Adviser at Amnesty International, who tells us about the history of the death penalty and its effectiveness.
The programme begins with two perspectives on capital punishment: Yoshikuni Noguchi recounts his time as a prison guard on death row in Japan in the 1970s; then we hear archive recordings of Albert Pierrepoint, Britain's most famous hangman.
Poland's former-Minister for Foreign Affairs, Radosław Sikorski, describes how close he came to death in the 2010 Smolensk air disaster, in which the country's President was killed.
Paul McLoone, the frontman of The Undertones, a punk-rock band, tells the bizarre story of how he became the broadcasting voice of IRA commander Martin McGuinness when the organisation was banned from British airwaves in 1988.
Finally, Karlheinz Brandenburg explains how he revolutionised the way we listen to music through his invention of the MP3.
Contributors:
Chiara Sangiorgio - Death Penalty Adviser at Amnesty International Yoshikuni Noguchi - Japanese death row prison guard. Albert Pierrepoint - British executioner. Radosław Sikorski - former-Minister for Foreign Affairs of Poland. Paul McCloone - band member of The Undertones and the voice of Martin McGuinness. Karlheinz Brandenburg - inventor of the MP3.
(Photo: Nooses. Credit: Rebecca Redmond/EyeEm via Getty Images)
Max Pearson presents a compilation of this week's Witness History programmes from the BBC World Service.
These include memories of the horsemeat scandal of 2013 from the man who uncovered what was happening. We'll hear analysis of other historical food scandals from expert Professor Saskia van Ruth.
Plus the last passenger off the plane, which landed on the Hudson river in 2009, shares his story.
Also on the programme: secret schools for Kosovar Albanians, nuclear testing in Algeria and teenagers with narcolepsy in Sweden.
Contributors: Professor Alan Reilly - former Chief Executive of the Irish Food Safety Authority Professor Saskia van Ruth - expert on food authenticity and integrity of supply networks, based at Wageningen University in the Netherlands and Queen’s University in Belfast, Northern Ireland Christopher Tyvi - lives with narcolepsy Abdelkrim Touhami - lives near former nuclear testing site in Algeria Linda Gusia - former student of Kosovo house schools Professor Drita Halimi - former Kosovo house school teacher Dave Sanderson - last passenger off US Airways flight 1549
(Photo: Raw burgers. Credit: Getty Images)
Max Pearson presents a compilation of this week's Witness History programmes from the BBC World Service.
You'll hear the story of how a marine biologist made a shocking discovery finding small bits of plastics floating thousands of miles of the east coast of America.
Then, marine biologist Christine Figgener talks about the history of oceans.
Also, the world's first transatlantic concert, a dispute over sea cucumbers in the Galapagos Islands, the world's first tidal power station and the first woman to win a Olympic windsurfing gold medal.
(Photo: Garbage on beach. Credit: Getty Images)
Contributors: Edward Carpenter - Marine biologist John Liffen - Curator emeritus at the Science Museum in London Marcos Escaraby - Fisherman in the Galapagos Islands Alan Tye - Conservationist Marc Bonnel - Brittany historian Babara Kendall - Windsurfing champion
Max Pearson presents a compilation of this week's Witness History programmes from the BBC World Service.
You'll hear the story of how a protest led by the punk band Pussy Riot in one of Moscow's main cathedrals led to a trial which made the news inside Russia and around the world.
Then, historian Robert Service talks about other examples of rebellion, from the time of the Russian empire through to modern day.
Also, the man Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet wanted dead, the most bizarre football match of all time and the African man who travelled across the world to live in the Arctic.
(Photo: Pussy Riot. Credit: Getty Images)
Contributors: Diana Burkot - member of Pussy Riot Robert Service - Professor of Russian History at the University of Oxford Carmen Castillo - wife of Miguel Enriquez who led resistance against Augusto Pichochet Paul Lambert - former Scotland footballer Alan Matarasso - American plastic surgeon Tété-Michel Kpomassie - Arctic explorer
Stories about the history of food, including the creation of ciabatta bread by a rally driver in Italy in 1982 and the Maltese bakers' strike in 1977.
Also, the invention of instant noodles in Japan, the start of the Slow Food Movement in Rome and the creation of Chicken Manchurian in India.
(Photo: Different shaped artisan bread loaves. Credit: Getty Images)
Contributors: Marco Vianello - baker and friend of the creator of ciabatta, Arnaldo Cavallari Noel Buttigieg - food historian Dr Sue Bailey - food historian, writer and lecturer Carlo Petrini - founder of the Slow Food Movement Momofuku Ando - colleague of the inventor of instant noodles, Yukitaka Tsutsui Edward Wang - son of Nelson Wang, the chef behind Chicken Manchurian
Max Pearson presents a compilation of this week's Witness History programmes from the BBC World Service.
Sir Trevor McDonald reflects on the BBC's first black producer, Una Marson, and her legacy in the development of the BBC Caribbean Service.
Also, how the BBC managed to broadcast through the Iron Curtain, Colombia's false positives scandal and the incredible rescue of 33 miners trapped in Chile.
(Photo: Sir Trevor McDonald. Credit: BBC)
Contributors: Sir Trevor McDonald, Una Marson, Debbie Ransome and Neil Nunes - BBC presenters Bridget Kendall - the BBC’s former Moscow correspondent Peter Udell - the BBC's former controller of European Services Jacqueline Castillo - whose brother was a victim of the 'false positives' scandal Dr Aslan Doukaev - university teacher when the first Chechen war started Mario Sepulveda - Chilean mine disaster survivor
The forced removal of families who weren't white from District Six, in Cape Town, by the South African apartheid regime and the man who jumped from space back to earth.
Also, stories about a Soviet fashionista, the Nazi occupation of Jersey and the Mongolia Revolution.
(Photo: District Six, circa 1969, in Cape Town. Credit: Getty Images)
Contributors: Zahra Nordien - who was forced out of District Six in Cape Town in 1977 Chrischené Julius - the manager of Collections, Research and Documentation at the District Six Museum Jenny Lecoat - the great-niece of Louisa Gould, who hid a Russian man from Nazis in Jersey Ganbold Davaadorj - a pro-democracy protestor in Mongolia Slava Zaitsev - Russian fashion designer Felix Baumgartner - daredevil
Max Pearson presents a compilation of this week's Witness History programmes from the BBC World Service.
We go to Quebec in 1995 when voters went to the polls to decide whether the province should declare independence from Canada.
Tim Marshall, the author of The Power of Geography and presenter of the World Service podcast, The Compass, explores other referendums which have taken place in recent history.
Plus the creation of children's TV series Teletubbies in 1994. It became a global hit.
(Photo: Voters gather in the streets of Barcelona. Credit: Marco Panzetti/NurPhoto Getty Images)
Contributors: Jean-François Lisée and Stephane Dion - on the Quebec referendum Paul Kelly - Australian political correspondent Praveen Jain - Indian photojournalist Patricia da Silva - Jean Charles de Menezes' cousin Anne Wood- creator of Teletubbies
Max Pearson presents a compilation of this week's Witness History programmes from the BBC World Service.
We hear from a man who was aged six when he was among the Japanese families expelled from his island home, as it was taken over by the Soviet Union after the Second World War. Our guest is Professor Haruko Satoh from Osaka University who analyses recent Japan-Russian relations and the impact of the invasion of Ukraine.
Twenty years after the Mombasa hotel bombing, a survivor recounts her experience. Also, the virologist who smuggled live HIV into Bulgaria in her handbag so she could start testing people.
Plus the flour protests at the 1970 Miss World contest and the history of a keep fit phenomenon.
Contributors: Yuzo Matsumoto - taken from his home on Etorofu in 1947 Professor Haruko Satoh - Osaka University Sally Alexander - protester at Miss World 1970 Kelly Hartog - survivor of the Mombasa hotel bombing Professor Radka Argirova - virologist from Bulgaria Annie Thorisdottir - CrossFit world champion
Max Pearson presents a collection of this week's Witness History episodes from the BBC World Service.
Malaysia's Prime Minister, Anwar Ibrahim, recounts being put on trial for sodomy and corruption. Our guest is the BBC's South East Asia correspondent, Jonathan Head, who tells us about Malaysian political history.
Iran's first women's minister describes the challenges she had to overcome. We hear how the seat belt and cat's eyes were invented. And a Swedish man remembers the chaos when his country switched to driving on the right-hand-side of the road.
Contributors: Anwar Ibrahim - Malaysian Prime Minister. Mahnaz Afkhami - Iran's first Minister of Women's Affairs. Gunnar Ornmark - step-son of the inventor of the modern seat belt. Glenda Shaw - great-niece of the inventor of cat's eyes. Bjorn Sylvern - on Sweden switching to driving on the right-hand-side.
Max Pearson presents a collection of this week's Witness History and Sporting Witness episodes, which focus on the Arabian Peninsula to mark the start of the football World Cup in Qatar.
Our guest is Dr Wafa Alsayed, Lecturer in Political Science and History at the Gulf University for Science and Technology in Kuwait.
We hear about how the states across the peninsula won independence, and speak to the architect of the region's tallest building, the Burj Khalifa.
There's also the invention of the robot camel jockey, and a pioneering female Qatari author.
On the World Cup theme, we end with the story of American popstar Diana Ross missing a penalty during the opening ceremony of the 1994 tournament.
Contributors: Mohammed Al-Fahim on the formation of the UAE Adrian Smith, architect of the Burj Khalifa Kaltham Jaber, Qatari author Esan Maruff who developed robot camel jockeys Alan Rothenberg who organised the 1994 World Cup
(Photo: Dubai skyline. Credit: Getty Images)
A collection of Witness History episodes, presented by Max Pearson. We look at how racism led to raids in the 1970s and protests in the 1980s in New Zealand, and the assassination of Pim Fortyn.
In New Zealand in the 1970s, dawn raids targeted Polynesian migrants who had overstayed their work permits. In response, the community formed a resistance group, the Polynesian Panthers, in June 1971. Professor Niki Alsford of Asia Pacific Studies at the University of Central Lancashire in England, describes the importance of the apology by the New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Arden was to Pacific Islanders in 2021.
It’s been 20 years since one of the most controversial politicians in Europe was assassinated just days before a general election. We hear from a TV reporter who was one of the first people on the scene after Pim Fortuyn was shot.
(Photo: New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Arden at a service to apologise to Pacific Islanders. Credit: Fiona Goodall/Getty Images)
A collection of Witness History episodes, looking at how young men in Africa have been exploited through football and and sex-selective abortion in India. Presented by Max Pearson.
For millions of gamers all over the world Tonton Zola Moukoko is a cult hero. The Swedish-Congolese footballer found fame as a brilliant player in the computer game series Championship Manager. But in the real world, things were very different. African football expert and journalist Oluwashina Okeleji reports on the historic treatment of young African footballers as they try to break into European professional leagues.
And we hear from feminist activist Manisha Gupte in India, who has campaigned against sex-selective abortion, eventually raising enough awareness to bring about a national law in 1994 - the Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques Act.
(Photo: Tonton in front of screenshot of Championship Manager. Credit: Tonton Zola Moukoko)
A collection of Witness History episodes, this week focusing on global events where women have taken a stand for equality from Sudan to Iran and Australia. In Iran in 1979, Islamic rules about how women dressed were just one of the issues women objected to during the Iranian revolution.
The BBC's Rana Rahimpour discusses the protests currently taking place in Iran triggered by the death of Mahsa Amini with echoes of what happened in 1979.
We also head to Sudan in 1991 when a law was introduced to control how women acted and dressed in public resulting in arrests, beatings and deaths.
And we hear from a survivor of the 2002 Moscow siege when heavily armed Chechen rebels took an entire theatre full of people hostage, with some disturbing scenes.
(Photo: Women during the Iranian revolution in 1979. Credit: Alain Dejean/Sygma via Getty Images)
A collection of the latest Witness History programmes which are all about Cuba. Presented by Max Pearson, who speaks to boxing journalist Steve Bunce about the nation's great boxers.
Earlier this year, Cuba lifted the ban on professional boxing, which Fidel Castro imposed in 1962. Rachel Naylor speaks to Mike ‘The Rebel’ Perez, who escaped in 2007 after being rewarded with a fizzy drink and two snapper fish after winning a world amateur title for his country. His defection needed the assistance of Mexican gangsters, an Irish promoter with an eye for a winning fighter and a fishing boat.
We also hear about a campaign aimed at eradicating illiteracy, a baseball match between Cuba and the US that was an act of diplomacy and the Cuban Missile Crisis which saw the world brought to the brink of nuclear war.
(Photo: Cuban boxer Teofilo Stevenson at the 1980 Olympics. Credit: Jerry Cooke via Getty Images)
A collection of the latest Witness History programmes, presented by Max Pearson. We look at moments from around the world when workers took industrial action in pursuit of better conditions from geisha in Japan to tortured wig factory workers in South Korea. This programme contains descriptions of torture.
Disney cartoonists went on strike for nine weeks in 1941. They were led by Art Babbitt, Disney’s top animator who created Goofy. The picket line was remarkable for its colourful artwork and support from Hollywood actors.
Anousha Sakoui, an entertainment industry writer for the Los Angeles Times discusses the impact of the Disney strikes and significant moments when Hollywood workers fought for their rights.
(Photo: Art Babbitt leads Disney animators holding placards with cartoon characters at a film premiere. Credit: Kosti Ruohomaa, a former Disney worker, courtesy of Cowan-Fouts Collection)
A collection of this week's Witness History programmes, presented by Max Pearson. The guest is Dr Emily Zobel Marshall. She explains the rise of festivals around the world celebrating Caribbean culture.
In 1962, Nigerian man Phil Magbotiwan opened a brand new nightclub in Manchester, UK. In part because of his own personal experiences of racism, Phil wanted to create somewhere where everyone would be welcome – Manchester’s first racially inclusive nightclub. The Reno was born. Phil’s youngest daughter, Lisa Ayegun has been speaking to Matt Pintus about the venue. This programme contains descriptions of racial discrimination.
We also hear about how an Israeli solider was brought back home after spending five years in captivity in Gaza, the fall of Slobodan Milosevic and how a low budget film staring musician Jimmy Cliff brought reggae to the world.
(Photo: A woman having a good time at Claudia Jones' Caribbean carnival, at St Pancras Town Hall in London, 1959. Credit: Daily Mirror via Getty Images)
A collection of this week's Witness History programmes, presented by Max Pearson. The guest is Nicholas Smith, author of "Kicks: The Great American Story of Sneakers" and Presenter of the BBC's "Sneakernomics" podcast. He explains how footwear revolutionised sport and became high-fashion.
In 1948, two brothers from a small German town called Rudi and Adi Dassler created the sportswear firms Puma and Adidas. Reena Stanton-Sharma hears from Adi Dassler’s daughter, Sigi Dassler, who remembers her father's obsession with footwear and talks about her fondness for the rappers, Run-DMC, who paid tribute to her dad’s shoes in a song.
We also hear about one man's mission to castrate Pablo Escobar's hippos, the unpredictable rule of Kenya's former President, Jomo Kenyatta, the 'Japanese Schindler', and the raising of the 400-year-old Mary Rose.
(Photo: Adi Dassler. Credit: Brauner/ullstein bild via Getty Images)
We look at some of the broadcasts delivered by Queen Elizabeth II including her first radio address to the children of the Commonwealth on 13 October 1940. Former BBC royal correspondent Jennie Bond looks back on the Queen's significant moments in front of a microphone.
Pope Paul VI's first visit to Africa when he travelled to Uganda in 1969, and was hosted by an Ismaili Muslim family and the start of the Iran-Iraq war in September 1980.
(Photo: Princess Elizabeth makes a broadcast from the gardens of Government House in Cape Town, South Africa, on her 21st birthday. Credit: BBC)
We hear personal accounts of historical moments during the seventy year reign of Queen Elizabeth II. Memories from the Queen's maids of honour from her coronation in 1953; the huge race her horse very nearly won as well as the Windsor Castle fire and the opening to the public of Buckingham Palace.
Presented by Max Pearson.
(Photo: Queen Elizabeth II. Credit: Getty Images)
Stories from Brazil, ahead of the presidential election in October, including the murder of Tim Lopes, the hero of Brazilian democracy and the Candelaria Massacre.
Plus the creation of the capital, Brasilia, and the history of the Fusca - the car that charmed Brazil.
This programme contains descriptions of violence and some listeners may find parts of it distressing.
(Photo: Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro. Credit: Buena Vista Images)
The former President of the Soviet Union's reforms in 1987, known as Perestroika, and the release of the dissident poet Irina Ratushinskaya in 1986.
Plus a survivor of the Marikana Massacre in South Africa, the Native American nicknamed 'the Last Indian' and Princess Diana's dance with John Travolta at the White House.
(Photo: Mikhail Gorbachev (centre right) meets with the Warsaw Pact Foreign Ministers' Committee in Moscow in 1987. Credit: AFP / Getty Images)
A compilation of witness accounts from when inflation and the cost of living were seriously affecting people's lives, among other topics.
In 1971, inflation was a huge problem in the USA so the President, Richard Nixon, made one of the most drastic moves in economic history; abandoning the Gold Standard. It became known as the 'Nixon Shock' and nearly caused a trade war between America and its allies. But, it also saved the US economy from a crisis. Ben Henderson spoke to Bob Hormats, an economic adviser in the Nixon administration, who was at the heart of decision-making.
In 1997, Bulgaria was in financial meltdown with hyperinflation making money worth a lot less. The country had emerged out of communism following the fall of the Soviet Union in 1989. Like other post-Soviet regimes, the country found the transition from communism to capitalism harder than expected. The President of Bulgaria, Petar Stoyanov, knew he had to do something and a recovery plan from one of Ronald Reagan’s key economic advisers was on the table. But would it work? Matt Pintus has been speaking to Steve Hanke, an economics professor.
In January 1980, Indira Gandhi's Congress (I) party was voted into power in India. Before the election, inflation meant that the cost of onions was unaffordable for many Indians. The price of the vegetable became a political hot potato in the election campaign. Reena Stanton-Sharma spoke to Suda Pai, a former Professor of Political Science at Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi.
In 2012, Syrian government soldiers surrounded Darayya, a suburb of Damascus, bombing buildings and searching for people who had spoken out against President Assad. Hundreds of people died over four days in what was described by activists as a “massacre”. Mohamad Zarda has been speaking to Laura Jones.
It has been 40 years since the first Gay Games were held in San Francisco in 1982. Attracting a large crowd and featuring more than 1,000 athletes from more than 100 countries, the event was organised by a group of LGBT activists, including former Olympians, to raise awareness of homophobia in sport. The Gay Games are now held every four years at venues around the world. In 2019, Ashley Byrne spoke to organiser Sara Waddell Lewinstein and athlete Rick Tomin. A Made in Manchester production for BBC World Service.
(Photo: President Richard Nixon with his economic advisers in 1971. Credit: Bettmann via Getty Images)
Max Pearson presents a compilation of stories marking 75 years since India's Partition. We'll hear the stories of people from both sides of the divide and find out about partition’s effect on the subcontinent’s diaspora.
Also, the daughter of the last British Viceroy in India, Lord Mountbatten, remembers the transfer of power in 1947.
Plus, we'll hear about the death of India's first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and how one of India’s greatest poets known as the ‘Bard of Bengal’, Rabindranath Tagore, became the first non-European to win a Nobel Prize for Literature.
(Photo: Wrecked buildings after communal riots in Amritsar, Punjab, during the Partition of British India, March 1947. Credit: Getty Images)
Max Pearson introduces first-hand accounts of the nightclub that changed Ibiza, some of the worst forest fires in history, the resignation of Richard Nixon, discovering the Hale Bopp comet and Sweden’s pronoun battle.
(Photo: Sunset over the sea in Ibiza with boats in the distance. Credit: BBC and Minnow Films)
Compilation of stories marking 50 years since Idi Amin expelled thousands of Asians from Uganda in 1972. We hear about why they migrated there, their expulsion, and what they did next.
Jamie Govani’s grandparents always dreamed about finding a better life away from India. After getting married in the Indian state of Gujarat in the 1920s, they decided to pack their bags and move to Uganda with their young family. It was a wonderful place to grow up for Jamie, but racial segregation lingered in the background, and things began to change after Ugandan independence in 1962. She’s been speaking to Ben Henderson. As well as in Uganda, there was also an Asian population in Kenya, who experienced discrimination. This was initially from white settlers but, after independence, it came from black Kenyans too. Following the partition of India in 1947, Saleem Sheikh’s parents fled to Kenya. His family joined a thriving Asian community there. But, they were forced to leave in the late 1960s after a rise in violence against the Asian population. Saleem tells Ben Henderson about his life.
In August 1972, the dictator Idi Amin announced that all Asians had just 90 days to leave Uganda. Nurdin Dawood, who was a teacher with a young family, initially didn't believe that Amin was being serious. But soon he was desperately searching for a country to call home. He spoke to his daughter Farhana Dawood in 2011.
Thousands of Asians who were expelled from Uganda in 1972 settled in the UK and many made the city of Leicester their home. They helped to shape the east Midlands city’s identity with lots of new businesses. Now Leicester has the largest Diwali celebrations outside of India. Nisha Popat was nine-years-old when she arrived there with her family who later opened a restaurant in the area that became known as the Golden Mile. Nisha tells her story to Reena Stanton-Sharma.
President Yoweri Museveni came to power in 1986. He encouraged exiled Asians to return to Uganda and reclaim their homes and businesses in order to rebuild the country. The economy had collapsed under the dictator Idi Amin. Dr. Mumtaz Kassam was one of the people who went back to Uganda years after arriving in the UK as a refugee. She talks to Reena Stanton-Sharma about returning to the country that had expelled her.
(Picture of Jamie Govani's grandparents, aunts and uncles in Uganda in the 1950s)
The following programme has been updated since its original broadcast.
A student protest in Ukraine, the Surkov leaks, the world’s deadliest ever earthquake, a leaflet bomber in South Africa and the invention of the nicotine patch.
(Photo: Oksana Zabuzhko wearing a red jumper at the Revolution on Granite in 1990)
The history of television from around the world and its enduring impact, including a look at Nigeria's sitcom Papa Ajasco and an interview with actor turned food writer and Indian TV cook Madhur Jaffrey. Also we take you behind the scenes of telenovelas- Mexican soap operas and one of the most successful drama schools in Latin America The Centro de Educación Artística.
Stories from around the world on women's reproductive rights. Women fighting both sides of the abortion debate as well as the first Muslim country to legalise abortion. Also, the development of the Pill and why Japan took so long to make it legal for women.
(Image: Speakers from Tunisia Women's Union at an event. Credit: Saida El Gueyed)
In 1961 the first openly gay person ran for public office in the United States. He was a drag queen called Jose Sarria, well-known for his performances at the bohemian 'Black Cat' bar in San Francisco. He was determined to stop gay people being second-class citizens. His friend and fellow drag performer Mike-Michelle spoke to Josephine McDermott about his memories of the campaign.
In 1928 the smear test was invented by Dr George Papanicoloau, a Greek immigrant who had made a new life in the United States. He discovered a way of detecting changes in cells from a woman’s cervix, which meant cancer could be prevented from developing. His work has stopped millions of women worldwide getting cancer. Dr Papanicolaou’s great niece Olga Stamatiou speaks to Laura Jones.
It’s 10 years since scientists in Geneva said they believed they had found the Higgs Boson - known as the 'God particle'. In July 2012 after more than 40 years of searching, teams taking part in experiments at the Large Hadron Collider confirmed the existence of the particle which gives everything mass. Dr André David from CERN speaks to Laura Jones.
In 1968 and early 1969 university students across Japan fought pitched battles with riot police after they barricaded themselves into their lecture halls and went on strike. They were protesting about the poor quality of their education and the inequalities of Japanese society in a period of rapid economic change. Emily Finch talks to Kazuki Kumamoto who was a young student who joined the protests. This is a Whistledown production for BBC World Service.
The south-east region of Nigeria declared itself to be the independent state of Biafra. In response, Nigerian forces invaded the state on the 6th July 1967, beginning the Nigerian Civil War. More than a million people died before the fighting stopped. We bring you one child’s story of getting caught up in the frontline. In 2021 Paul Waters spoke to Patricia Ngozi Ebigwe, now better known as TV and music star Patti Boulaye, who was 13 years old when she had to try to escape the conflict.
(Photo: Jose Sarria in drag. Credit: The Jose Sarria Foundation)
Stories from Hong Kong, 25 years on since the handover from British to Chinese rule. We hear from the last governor of Hong Kong, a pro democracy campaigner and about life in Kowloon Walled City.
(Photo: Chris Patten at the handover ceremony of Hong Kong from Britain to China. Credit: Getty Images)
In June 2012, Egypt held its first ever free democratic Presidential election. Mohamed Morsi, representing the Muslim Brotherhood, emerged victorious. Ben Henderson spoke to Rabab El-Mahdi, Chief Strategist to one of Morsi’s rival candidates. She described what it was like to be involved in the first election of its kind, how Morsi tried to recruit her, and the personal impact of political campaigning in such a polarised country.
In June 1982 a young Chinese-American engineer was murdered with a baseball bat by two white men in the US city of Detroit. The lenient sentences the perpetrators received sparked an Asian-American activist movement with protests across the US. At the time, America was going through an economic depression and many blamed Japan, which was perceived to be flooding the US with its cars. For Asian-Americans, it was a time of fear. Farhana Haider spoke to Helen Zia, one of the activists who led the fight for justice. This programme was first broadcast in 2017.
In 2003, Dr Nayana Patel, who ran her own fertility clinic in the state of Gujarat in India, carried out her first surrogacy procedure. It involved a surrogate mother and her own daughter. Dr Patel's clinic would go on to become one of the biggest in India attracting Western couples. It was legalised in 2002 but due to growing criticism, the government banned couples from the West from paying Indian surrogates to bear their children in 2015, arguing that the industry was exploiting poor women. Reena Stanton-Sharma spoke to Dr Nayana Patel.
In 1985, the first robot-assisted medical surgery took place in Vancouver, Canada. It’s now become a standard feature of operating theatres worldwide. The original gadget was named Arthrobot. A member of the original project team, Geof Auchinleck, told his story to Kurt Brookes. A Made in Manchester production.
The UK’s first official gay Pride march took place 50 years ago – on 1st July 1972. Alex Collins talked to Ted Brown, who took part in the London march.
In 2009, Rob Hamill testified in the trial of Comrade Duc, who ran the notorious Tuol Sleng prison during the Cambodian genocide. Josephine McDermott spoke to him.
It is 50 years since Kim Phuc's village in Vietnam was bombed with napalm. The photograph of her, running burned from the attack, became one of the iconic images of the Vietnam War. Kim Phuc talks to Christopher Wain, the man who helped save her.
In 2001 a violent, sectarian dispute took place outside Holy Cross Primary School in Belfast. Loyalist protesters tried to block the school run for Catholic pupils and their parents for months. Rachel Naylor spoke to one of the parents, Elaine Burns.
This year is the 100th anniversary of Ulysses by James Joyce, one of the most influential novels of the 20th Century. Ulysses is the story of one day in the life of a young Irishman in Dublin; that day, June 16th, is now known as Bloomsday. To mark Bloomsday, Simon Watts brought together the memories of some of Joyce’s friends. The programme was first broadcast in 2012.
In 1985, a unique High School opened in New York to provide a safe environment for LGBT students needing specialised education. The publicly-funded Harvey Milk High School was founded by former social worker, Steve Askinazy. Alex Collins talked to Steve Askinazy.
(Photo: Kang Kek lew (Comrade Duc) as Director of Tuol Sleng Prison, c.1976-8. Credit: Getty images)
Max Pearson introduces first-hand accounts of the 2006 suicide bombing attack on Sri Lanka's president, the 75th anniversary of Anne Frank's diary and the 1968 assassination in the US of Bobby Kennedy. Plus, the birth of a crime fighting women's rights group in India and the moment the President of Gabon was shown the treasures of the rainforest.
Max Pearson introduces first-hand accounts of the 2013 chemical weapons attack in Syria and the opening of a refugee camp for Syrians fleeing the civil war. Plus, how lynching was finally outlawed in America, the opening of the Sydney Opera House and the Queen's coronation.
PHOTO: A UN inspector at work in Ghouta, Syria in August 2013 (Reuters)
Max Pearson introduces the memories of people who knew Picasso, Frida Kahlo and Georgia O'Keeffe; plus, how a collector in the Soviet Union managed to open a museum for Russian artists banned by Stalin, and how a festival in Senegal in the 1960s inspired artists across a newly-independent Africa.
PHOTO: Pablo Picasso in 1955 (Getty Images)
Max Pearson introduces first-hand accounts of the rule of Ferdinand Marcos Senior in the 1970s and 80s; plus, Shanghai during World War Two, and the opening of the first McDonald's in the Soviet Union. The History Hour also hears how the murder of a young West Indian called Kelso Cochrane changed race relations in Britain in the late 1950s.
PHOTO: Imelda and Ferdinand Marcos in Manila in 1977 (Getty Images)
With speculation mounting that President Putin might mount an attack on Moldova, Max Pearson hears a first-hand account of the war in the 1990s between the Moldovans and Russian-backed separatists in the disputed region of Transnistria. There's also a chilling story from the Cold War about how a Soviet air defence official prevented a potential catastrophe by realising that a computer warning about a US nuclear attack was a false alarm.
In the second-half of the History Hour, an Egyptian poet remembers how 48 hours of unrest in 1977 forced the government to scrap a huge increase in the cost of bread, and an Icelandic geophysicist recalls how the 2010 eruption of the Eyjafjallajökull volcano caused disruption all over Europe.
PHOTO: Russian-speaking Transnistrian fighters during the war (Getty Images)
Max Pearson gets a first-hand account of how the minority Uyghur community in China staged some of the first protests against the all-powerful Communist Party in the 1980s. Plus, the young lawyer who won the landmark Roe v Wade abortion rights case in the US, the chemistry of cannabis and the personal stories of two veterans of the 1982 Falklands War.
PHOTO: A Uyghur yurt on the Xinjiang steppe (Getty Images)
Sixty years after Algeria's independence from France, first-hand accounts of a traumatic 'birth of a nation': a female Algerian bomber who was part of the battle for Algiers; how the French military responded with brutal tactics; a massacre on the streets of Paris; and reprisals against Algerians who fought alongside the French. Plus,the flowering of a national spirit through football.
(Photo: French soldiers in the kasbah of Algiers, 1960. Credit: Getty Images)
On the fortieth anniversary of the Argentine invasion of the Falkland Islands, Max Pearson hears two contrasting accounts of the war with Britain. Patrick Watts was the manager of the radio station on the Falklands; he kept broadcasting calmly as Argentine troops burst into the studio. Patrick Savage was a conscript in the Argentine army; for him, the fighting was a cold, frightening and brutal experience that culminated in defeat. Max also gets analysis of the conflict from Argentine political scientist, Dr Celia Szusterman.
In the second half of the programme, there are first-hand accounts of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979; the US-USSR trade deal that fuelled inflation in the 70s; and a historic handshake in space between an American astronaut and a Soviet cosmonaut.
PHOTO: Argentine troops on the Falklands shortly after the 1982 invasion (Getty Images)
Starting in late 2011, tens of thousands of protestors took to the streets to try to stop what they saw as a power grab by Russian leader Vladimir Putin. The movement was not successful, but analysts say it worried the Russian leader so much that he launched a crackdown on dissent that has lasted to this day. We hear from Russian rock journalist, Artemy Troitsky, who composed a song that became an anthem of what was sometimes called the "Snow Revolution".
Also, the launch of the first women's newspaper in Afghanistan, how black stuntmen demanded work from the big studios in Hollywood, and the dramatic story of the women who escaped a violent cult based in South London.
Photo: An anti-Putin rally in Moscow in December 2011. Credit: Getty Images
To mark the Russian invasion of Ukraine, a special edition on episodes from Ukrainian history.
In April 1986 a reactor exploded at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Soviet Ukraine. Sergii Mirnyi monitored radiation levels in the exclusion zone around the plant. How the international community - including both Russia and the USA - offered security "assurances" to Ukraine in return for giving up its share of the Soviet nuclear arsenal. A survivor's account of Ukraine's great famine in the 1930s, the Holodomor, when several million people died. The mass killing of Ukrainian Jews by Nazi Germany during World War Two, and how Artek, on the shores of the Black Sea in Crimea, became the Soviet Union's most popular holiday camp.
Photo: The Chernobyl plant shortly after the explosion in 1986 Credit: Getty Images
To celebrate International Women's Day, a special edition on five women who've made their mark on history. US feminist Gloria Steinem remembers founding Ms Magazine in 1972; Iranian lawyer Shirin Ebadi discusses the human rights campaigning which won her the Nobel Peace Prize; and a friend of Anna Akhmatova remembers the great Russian poet. Plus, a leading Italian feminist on the international movement in the 1970s which demanded women get paid for housework; and the Australian women who helped turn public opinion against the Vietnam War.
Picture: Gloria Steinem, centre, at the offices of Ms Magazine in New York circa 1974 (Credit: PL Gould/IMAGES/Getty Images)
How Vladimir Putin, a former KGB agent, rose to power and transformed Russia. We hear eyewitness accounts of Putin's war in Chechnya, his campaign against Russia's independent media, and the war in Georgia, which became a blueprint for the invasion of Ukraine. Plus the BBC's Russia specialist Lucy Ash tells us why Putin was shaped by his experience of the end of the Cold War, and we talk to Dr Katerina Tertytchnaya of UCL about Putin's popularity and a turning point in Russian popular protest.
Photo: A Russian soldier walks through the streets of the destroyed Chechen capital Grozny, February 25, 2000. (Photo by Oleg Nikishin/Getty Images)
In the 1990s, doctors in Berlin began a cutting-edge treatment programme that led to a patient being cured of HIV/AIDS. The so-called "Berlin patient" was Timothy Ray Brown: he was suffering from leukemia as well as HIV/AIDS, and was given a bone marrow transplant from a donor with a rare genetic mutation which killed off the HIV virus. We find more about Timothy Ray Brown's story and the latest research on an HIV cure.
Also, in a special edition on LGBT history, how Bollywood lesbian drama "Fire" raised awareness of LGBT issues in India; the trans film star who made headlines in Yugoslavia during a time of war; and the first couple in the world to celebrate a same-sex civil union.
PHOTO: Timothy Ray Brown in 2012 (Getty Images)
Former presidents and protestors recount two key moments in the history of the Ukraine crisis - from the historic meeting that ended the USSR to the dramatic anti-government protests in Ukraine in 2013-14. And the BBC's Lucy Ash explains how Russian-Ukrainian relations have evolved. Also in the programme, an eyewitness account of the forgotten mass killings in Burundi in 1972, plus the inventors of Google Maps and how Manolo Blahnik became a legend in the world of shoes.
Photo: Kyiv, Ukraine - December 9th 2013. Anti-government protesters stand guard at one of the barricades defending Maidan Square against police. Credit: Etienne De Malglaive/Getty Images
How Kazakhstan's strongman president, Nursultan Nazarbayev, created a new capital, which would eventually be named after him; transformation in the UEA - the first Emirati female teacher in the 1960s; the murder of American journalist, Daniel Pearl; from 70 years ago, the passing of Britain’s King George VI; and a once-in-a-lifetime transit of Venus.
Picture: Kazakhstan's capital, Astana, since renamed Nur-Sultan (credit: Shutterstock)
In one of the most controversial episodes of 'The Troubles' in Northern Ireland, UK soldiers fired on unarmed Catholic protesters, killing 13 in January 1972. We look at why British troops were there, what happened on that day, and how it further polarised Protestant Unionist and Catholic Republican communities. Successive UK governments insisted the soldiers had returned fire in self defence, until a public inquiry reported in 2010 that the soldiers had in fact fired first - and at fleeing, unarmed, protesters. The then Prime Minister, David Cameron, apologised on behalf of the government. We'll speak to former BBC Northern Ireland Editor, Eimear O'Callaghan, who as a teenager kept a diary of life in sectarian Belfast in the 1970s, later published into a book, and who reported for years on the struggle for peace.
Photo: A British soldier grabs hold of a protester by the hair. (Credit: AFP/Getty Images)
In 2009, Boko Haram, a small Islamist group, launched an insurgency in the north eastern Nigerian city of Maiduguri. The conflict would eventually force hundreds of thousands from their homes, and leave tens of thousands dead. We hear a witness account of how the violence started. Plus, this past week Americans have been observing the Martin Luther King Jr. Day national holiday. The long campaign to have Dr King formally recognized in the US was led by his widow, Coretta Scott King. We hear from her daughter, Dr Bernice King, about the campaign. We dip into the BBC archive to bring you the story of the notorious Stanford Prison Experiment. Also, from the 1980s, a time when many wanted to get out of East Germany and into the West, the young woman who decided to go the other way and set up a new life in the East. And the Dutchman behind the first bike sharing scheme.
Photo: A suspected Boko Haram house in Maiduguri set ablaze by Nigerian security forces, 30th July 2009 (AFP/Getty Images)
The Indian independence campaigner, Subhas Chandra Bose, sided with Hitler's axis powers in World War Two to try to free his country from British rule. We'll hear from his great-niece about why she thinks that if he had lived he could have changed the course of India's history. We'll also hear from Dr Shruti Kapila of Cambridge University about why India's current government is celebrating Bose. Plus a nuclear scientist tells us about his role in a secret project to make safe vast swathes of nuclear-contaminated land in post-Soviet Kazakhstan - as well as preventing nuclear material from falling into the wrong hands. Also, the reckless actions which led to the sinking of the Costa Concordia cruise ship, the first woman to have silicone breast implants and Malick Sidibé, the Malian photographer whose work altered people's perceptions about 1960s Africa.
Photo: Subhas Chandra Bose giving a speech in Nazi Germany in 1942.
Mozambique’s struggle to end Portuguese colonial rule and the assassination of Eduardo Mondlane, we'll hear from his daughter Nyeleti Brooke Mondlane and Dr Eric Morier-Genoud from Queen's University Belfast. Also, the brainwashing of Albanian youth under Stalinist Enver Hoxha's leadership, the fight for democracy in Taiwan and the worst ever loss of life at sea - the sinking of the German military transport ship, Wilhelm Gustloff in World War Two. All that plus, from the archives, the life and work of the celebrated French author Marcel Proust 100 years after his death.
PHOTO: Eduardo Mondlane in 1966 (Getty Images)
The inside story of games that shaped the modern world. Including Atari's Nolan Bushnell on his game Pong which helped launch the video game industry. Plus the origin of Grand Theft Auto, the man who invented Tetris, the son of the Lego brick pioneer and the true story of Monopoly. Max Pearson also talks to the technology journalist Louise Blain about the development of the huge gaming industry and where it goes next.
Photo: Pong being played at a retro games event in Germany (Getty Images)
In 2011, cybersecurity expert Manal Al-Sharif helped found the Women2Drive movement. It was designed to force the Saudi Arabian government to overturn its ban on women driving cars - one of the many restrictions on women in the Kingdom. Inspired by the mood of the Arab Spring, Saudi women got behind the wheel and then posted videos of themselves all over social media. The movement attracted international attention and the ban on women drivers was eventually lifted. Saudi journalist Safa Al-Ahmad describes how the lifting of the ban was a radical change to Saudi society, but women in the country still face many severe restrictions. Plus, how in 2010 a Tanzanian man with albinism braved threats and discrimination to become the country's first albino elected politician. Also, the dramatic story of how the great Russian ballet dancer, Rudolf Nureyev, defected from the Soviet Union in 1961. Finally, the festive history of how a town in Finnish Lapland, eviscerated during WWII, rose from the ashes to become the unofficial home of Santa Claus. Presented by Max Pearson.
A special edition on the Bangladesh War of Independence, which ended 50 years ago in December 1971. The conflict killed hundreds of thousands of people and redrew the political map of South Asia. The programme features first-hand accounts from leading activists and politicians, as well as the people caught up in the war - from a Pakistani soldier to one of the many Bangladeshi women who suffered appalling sexual violence.
There is expert analysis from Sabir Mustafa, the head of the BBC Bengali Service, and Witness History's Farhana Haider.
PHOTO: The flag of Bangladesh is raised at the Awami League headquarters in 1971. Credit: Getty Images.
It’s forty years since the first report on HIV/Aids appeared in a medical journal. Back in the early days in the 1980s a misunderstanding made one man the face of the epidemic. A Canadian air steward, Gaetan Dugas was mistakenly identified as ‘Patient Zero’. A misreading of scientific data had given the impression that he was responsible for the spread of the disease. We hear from people who knew him. Also one woman who was diagnosed in the 1980s tells us of the stigma at the time. And the discovery of the first successful treatment for HIV/Aids, as well as the story of how South African activists led the charge to make drugs widely available. And we hear from the former partner of the British film maker, Derek Jarman who was one of the first artists to speak openly about being HIV positive. Photo: Gaetan Dugas. (Credit: Rand Gaynor)
The three Mirabal sisters were leading figures in the Dominican Republic's opposition movement against the dictator General Rafael Trujillo. They were all killed on the 25th November 1960. We hear from the daughter of one of them, Minerva, who tells us about her family and from Professor Elizabeth Manley on the Mirabal sister's legacy in the Dominican Republic. Also in the programme, the last case of Smallpox in Europe, the woman who helped her mother to die and laid the groundwork for the Netherlands becoming the first country in the world to legalise euthanasia. Also how Estonia led the way on connecting up schools to the internet and the painting by Gustav Klimt which was stolen by Nazis and only returned to its Jewish owners after a lengthy legal battle.
Photo: The three Mirabal Sisters, Patria, Minerva and Maria Teresa (Credit: Mirabal family collection)
How in 1964 Sudanese civilian protesters first brought down a military regime, plus the hunt for former Serbian leader Radovan Karadžić later convicted of genocide and war crimes. Also in the programme, Russia's public outcry at the killing of human rights pioneer and leading female politician Galina Starovoitova in the 1990s, the birth of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for anxiety and depression, and getting shot in the arm for the sake of 'art' in the USA.
Photo: People celebrate the fall of the military regime in Khartoum, November 1964 (Keystone-France/Gamma-Keystone via Getty Images)
In 2008, the brutal murder of Eudy Simelane shocked South Africa and highlighted the widespread violence faced by South African women and members of the LGTBI community. But has anything changed? We hear from a friend of Eudy and speak to Sibongile Ndashe, a South African lawyer and human rights activist. Plus, we look back at the massive oil fires in Kuwait in 1991, battling racial discrimination in British schools in the 1960s, Cold War intelligence gathering in East Germany and the invention of Chanel No.5, 100 years ago.
Photo: Eudy Simelane’s parents sat at the bridge named in their daughter’s honour. Credit: BBC
An hour of first hand accounts from the past. Starting with a crackdown on opposition voices in Eritrea from twenty years ago, plus memories of the 1956 Hungarian uprising, the Nuremberg trials, a breakthrough in orthopaedics, and how the fictional character Fu Manchu prejudiced popular opinion against China and the Chinese for decades.
To mark the start of the UN Climate Change Conference, or COP26, taking place in Glasgow in the UK, we’re looking back at the history of our awareness of climate change with some of the scientists and activists who have been trying to solve this global crisis in recent decades. We hear from environmental activist Severn Cullis-Suzuki, who was just 12 years old when she implored world leaders to take action, at the 1992 UN Earth Summit in Rio De Janeiro. Plus, how a pioneering American scientist provided compelling evidence of man-made global warming back in the 1950s, and measuring melting glaciers at the top of Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania.
Photo: Severn Cullis-Suzuki (2nd left) and her friends at the Earth Summit in Rio in 1992. Courtesy of Severn Cullis-Suzuki.
The anti-nuclear weapons protest began in 1981 and lasted nineteen years. Also the first transgender priest in the Church of England, WW2 Polish refugees in Africa, plus why lesbian mothers caused such a stir in the 1970s and was the untimely death of Mozambique's President Samora Machel an assassination?
Photo: Women from the Greenham Common peace camp blocking Yellow Gate into RAF Greenham Common , 1st April 1983 . (Photo by Staff/Reading Post/MirrorpixGetty Images)
Under legislation known as the Hudood Ordinances introduced in 1979, a nearly blind teenaged rape survivor was jailed herself for having sex outside marriage. In 1983 Safia Bibi was sentenced to three years imprisonment, 15 lashes and a fine. The verdict and the draconian punishment galvanised the women's rights movement in Pakistan. Also in the programme the terrible price paid by an abortion doctor in 1990s America, the rise of a fascist movement in 1960s Britain plus the Saudi author who shook up Arabic fiction in the early 2000s and from 1987 how a baby stuck down a well in Texas gripped the world’s attention.
As part of our British black history coverage we look back at the racism faced by London's first black policeman from his own colleagues. We also hear about the death in police custody of black ex-soldier Christopher Alder. Plus, the intriguing story of a Somali sailor based in the UK in the early 20th century; the heartbreak faced by the children of black American soldiers and white British mothers during World War Two; and the story of Clyde Best, Britain's pioneering black footballer. Presenter Max Pearson also hears from Dr Martin Glynn of Birmingham City University's Black Studies course. Photo: London's first black policeman PC Norwell Roberts beginning his training with colleagues at Hendon Police College, London, 5 April 1967. Credit: Hulton Archive/Getty Images
In 1971 photographer Claudia Andujar began documenting the lives of a remote indigenous tribe in the Brazilian Amazon jungle. Her photographs helped the campaign for recognition of the Yanomami's rights over their own land. Chris Feliciano Arnold, writer and reporter specializing in the Amazon, describes the new threats facing the many indigenous communities in the region. Plus, remembering Petra Kelly - one of the influential founders of the German Green party, tracing the birth of the Taliban, and a survivor of of the Tanker Wars in the 1980s describes the moment his ship was attacked.
Photo:Antônio Korihana thëri, a young man under the effect of the hallucinogenic powder yãkoana, Catrimani, 1972-1976. © Claudia Andujar
Eyewitnesses remember the Westgate mall attack in Kenya, the 1990s 'miracle water' craze in Mexico, and the poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko. Plus the amazing story of how a journalist revealed the secret romance between Aristotle Onassis and Jackie Kennedy, and we look back at the changing nature of James Bond.
Photo: A police officer at the site of the terrorist attack, Westgate Mall, on September 21, 2013 in Nairobi, Kenya.. (Photo by Jeff Angote/Nation Media/Gallo Images/Getty Images)
In 2010 the Haitian capital and surrounding areas were hit by a catastrophic earthquake. Much of Port Au Prince was flattened and more than a hundred thousand people were killed. Amid the destruction and death people's first instinct was to pull together and help one another. A survivor describes what happened after his family home collapsed around him. Plus, a prisoner who took part in the dramatic Attica prison uprising of 1971, the professor who used DNA to unravel a 200-year-old royal mystery from France, and one of the first settlers of Copenhagen's famous hippy commune, Christiania.
Photo: Men gather to try to reach those still buried in the rubble beneath the Haitian Department of Justice building in January 2010.(Photo by Carolyn Cole/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)
In a special edition on the terrorist attacks on America, we hear from the White House official who broke the news to the President and a Muslim first-responder who worked at Ground Zero. Plus, personal memories of the US intelligence failures in the run-up to 9/11 and the bombing of Afghanistan which followed. We also get a dramatic first-hand account of the death of Ahmed Shah Massoud, the leader of the Afghan resistance against the Taleban, who was killed by an al-Qaeda suicide bomber on the eve of the attacks on New York and Washington. And former BBC diplomatic correspondent Jonathan Marcus joins us to analyse the war on terror and the gains made - or not made - in the twenty years since a day which changed the world.
Photo: Smoke pours from the World Trade Centre after it was hit by two passenger planes on September 11, 2001 in New York City. (Credit: Robert Giroux/Getty Images)
When South Vietnam fell in 1975, most could not escape. In the last days, the US airlifted its remaining personnel and some high ranking Vietnamese officials - but millions were left behind to await their fate. Hear the account of one South Vietnamese veteran who remained in Saigon as North Vietnamese forces took the city. Also on the programme: the 1990s electric car that was taken out of production, we go up close with North Korea's Kim Il Sung, the Gdansk shipyard strike in Poland, and the Sicilian businessman who tried to defy the Mafia.
Photo: A South Vietnamese soldier helps his wounded friend during fighting with communist forces in Saigon, 28th April 1975 (Bettmann/Getty Images)
Fang Lang was one of six Chinese men who survived the sinking of the Titanic in 1912. The six faced racism and a hostile immigration system when they reached America. Unlike other survivors, their stories remained untold for decades. We hear from Fang Lang's son Tom and Arthur Jones whose documentary called The Six tells the story of those six Chinese survivors. Also John Maynard Keynes, the economist who transformed the world, changing attitudes in Mexico towards disabled women plus Nigeria’s war against indiscipline in the 1980s and the contested legacy of one of the most revered Arab poets of the twentieth century.
Photo: Tom’s father, Fang Lang. Credit: LP Films.
The desperate scramble to evacuate the US embassy at the end of the Vietnam war in 1975, also the 1940s Indian radio station calling for independence. We'll look at life as a 'human shield' in Iraq under Saddam, the man who invented the term 'genocide' and why, and the messy diplomatic embarrassment of Nicolae Ceaușescu's visit to The Queen in 1978.
(Photo: A CIA employee helps Vietnamese evacuees onto an Air America helicopter from the top of 22 Gia Long Street, a half mile from the U.S. Embassy. April 1975. Getty Images.)
In August 1961, communist East Germany began building the Berlin Wall, which divided the city for nearly three decades and became a symbol of the Cold War. We hear the memories of Germans from both sides of the Wall and tales of daring escapes. Plus, what life was like in the East - from nudism and folk music to the grim reality of facing the notorious Stasi secret police.
PHOTO: Soldiers at the Berlin Wall in the early 1960s (Getty Images)
The story of the famed 1970s Indian conservation movement. Plus we speak to Professor Vinita Damodaran about the history of Indian environmentalism. Also Patti Boulaye on escaping the Biafran war, we hear from Dorothy Butler Gilliam - an African American news pioneer, why Afghanistan's first private radio station helped change a generation, and memories of a taboo-breaking gay support group in 1990s India.
(Photo by Bhawan Singh/The The India Today Group via Getty Images)
We hear about the start of the war in Darfur, through the eyes of a teenage boy whose life was changed when the Sudanese military allied to a local militia, the Janjaweed, laid waste to villages across the region, killing and raping as they went. We hear from a survivor of Norway's worst day of terror, when a far-right extremist, Anders Breivik, launched a bomb attack on government offices and attacked a summer camp. Plus a story from our archives from a British army officer during World War Two who witnessed the end of Italy's colonial rule in East Africa during a final battle in the Ethiopian town of Gondar. From Brazil, the women's rights activist whose story of abuse inflicted by her husband inspired the country's first legislation recognising different forms of domestic violence in 2006. Lastly, the story of how the family of the artist Vincent Van Gogh worked to get him recognised as a great painter after he died penniless in 1890. Photo: A young Darfurian refugee walks past a Sudan Liberation Army Land Rover filled with teenage rebel fighters on October 14 2004 in the violent North Darfur region of Sudan. (Photo by Benjamin Lowy/Getty Images)
Afghans remember life under the Taliban in 1990s Kabul, and we ask Kate Clark of the Afghanistan Analysts Network about the fall and rise of the Taliban. Plus, Jane Goodall on her ground-breaking study of chimpanzees, why race riots swept northern England in 2001, the remarkable story of a boy trapped in China's Cultural Revolution, and the invention of the jet engine.
Photo: Taliban gunners outside Kabul in November 1996.(Credit: Emmanuel Dunand/AFP via Getty Images)
When the USSR collapsed it could no longer support North Korea, leading to hundreds of thousands of deaths due to starvation and malnutrition. We hear from one survivor and Prof Hazel Smith who explains some of the contributing factors behind the 'long, slow famine'. Also on the programme, the bombing of the Rainbow Warrior, why the UK sent all its gold to Canada during World War Two, battling for Roma rights and the mystery behind Cuba's blindness epidemic. All told by the people at the heart of the stories.
Photo: North Korean boys at a kindergarten in Pyongyang pose for a World Food Programme Emergency Food Assistance photographer in 1997. Their thin arms and legs, knobby knees and distended abdomens show that they are seriously malnourished. (Credit: Susan North/AFP/Getty Images)
Is there anybody out there? Max Pearson hears about a UFO sighting in rural Zimbabwe in 1994 and talks to Gideon Lewis-Kraus of the New Yorker about whether the US Pentagon is taking UFOs more seriously. Plus, the birth of communist China, a wind power pioneer, trailblazing Chinese students and a radical Syrian playwright. Image: Composite of children's illustrations of UFO, Zimbabwe 1994.
In June 2015 an American anti-racist activist climbed a flagpole on the South Carolina state house grounds to take down the Confederate flag. The protest followed the killing of 9 black people at a historic Charleston church by a white supremacist who was pictured holding the flag. We discuss the history of this divisive symbol of America's racist past. Also how life in the Chinese countryside has been dramatically changed by 40 years of migration to the cities. Plus, from the 1980s, a British TV event that shifted attitudes towards victims of rape, East Germany’s iconic Trabant car and the man behind Mindfulness.
Photo Bree Newsome taking down the Confederate flag at the State House in Columbia, SC, on Saturday 27th June 2015. Credit Adam Anderson / Reuters.
On 7 June 1981 Israeli fighter jets launched a surprise attack on the Osirak nuclear reactor located outside Baghdad, killing 11 people. The French-built reactor was still under construction and there was no leakage of nuclear material, but the bombing was widely condemned internationally. We hear from Dr Fadhil Muslim al Janabi, a former consultant for Iraq's nuclear agency. Also this week, eye-witness testimony to the fall of Madrid in 1939; Hamas' unexpected election victoryin 2006, the plight of legal sex workers in Tunisia and taking part in Benjamin Britten's War Requiem at the consecration of Coventry's new cathedral.
Photo: The Tammuz light-water nuclear materials testing reactor under construction in Al-Tuwaitha, just outside of Baghdad, 1979. (Getty Images)
US President Richard Nixon declared illegal drugs 'public enemy number one' in 1971 and launched a worldwide 'war' on the narcotics trade. 50 years on we revisit key moments in the ongoing fight against the powerful criminal groups involved from Columbia to Afghanistan. We'll hear personal stories from the front line of drug addiction, plus journalist and author Ioan Grillo joins our presenter Max Pearson to discuss, what went wrong in the war on drugs?
Photo: US President Richard Nixon (BBC)
We remember Amilcar Cabral, who led the armed struggle against Portuguese colonial rule in West Africa in the 1970s and speak to Dr Nayanka Perdigao about his legacy. Plus the shocking fallout of the Indian rail strike in 1974 which was - at the time - the biggest industrial action on record and from a century ago, the Tulsa race massacre, when thousands of African Americans were left homeless and hundreds were killed. We'll also find out how Lotfia Elnadi became the first Arab woman pilot in 1933 and the story behind the first big charity fundraising rock concert in the Soviet Union when communism broke with its antipathy toward western pop music.
Photo: Rebel soldiers on patrol in Guinea Bissau during the Portuguese Colonial War in West Africa, 1972. Credit: Reg Lancaster/Express/Hulton Archive/Getty Images
Under the slogan 'kefaya' which means 'enough' in Arabic, in 2004 Egyptians began protesting in Cairo against the rule of President Hosni Mubarak. The months of demonstrations took place several years before the Arab Spring swept through the region and drew many people onto the streets for the first time in their lives. We get an eye-witness account.
Plus, Ariel Sharon's controversial visit to the al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem in 2000, the women who staged strikes against military rule in South Korea, and the landmark 1971 conference on saving the world's wetlands.
PHOTO: Protestors in Egypt in 2004 (AFP/Getty Images)
# Warning: This programme contains descriptions of drug use # In 1955 Christopher Mayhew MP took the hallucinogenic drug mescaline for a TV experiment. We look back at the history of psychedelic research and speak to Dr Robin Carhart-Harris, head of the Centre for Psychedelic Research at Imperial College London. Plus, the battle to legalise contraception in Ireland, a pro-democracy activist in China, the chemical and biological weapons programme in apartheid South Africa, and why thousands of Jews secretly fled Iraq in the 1970s.
The IRA hunger strikes of 1981 – Max Pearson hears from Suzanne Breen of the Belfast Telegraph about the impact of the hunger strikes in Northern Ireland. Plus, one man’s story of surviving Guantanamo Bay, how a French winemaker exposed a wine fraudster, feminist science fiction pioneer Ursula Le Guin, and cannabis coffee shops in Amsterdam.
It is 10 years since the al-Qaeda leader was killed. We look at the US special forces operation that finally tracked him down to a city in northern Pakistan, the 1979 siege of the Grand Mosque in Mecca, one of the events that shaped his world view; we talk to a Western-based journalist who met him, hear from a survivor of the attacks on the US embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam in 1998 and hear about the hunt for the al-Qaeda leader in the mountains of Afghanistan after 9/11.
(Photo: Osama Bin Laden. Credit:AFP/Getty Images)
The origins of the gun lobby in the US. Plus we speak to Prof Robert Spitzer about the power of the National Rifle Association. Also, the mysterious American who killed two men in Pakistan and triggered a diplomatic crisis, the historic trial of the Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann in 1961, the battle to reclaim a Native American sacred lake, and the first space shuttle mission.
Photo: National Rifle Association Holds Its Annual Conference In Dallas, Texas. DALLAS, TX - MAY 05 2018. Credit: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
Sandra Day O'Connor was appointed to America's top court in 1981. She'd been nominated by newly-elected Republican president Ronald Reagan. Also in the programme: an eye-witness on the beaches during the failed Bay of Pigs invasion in Cuba, the worm that unlocked secrets of genetics in the 1960s, the decline of the South Asian vulture and China's "kingdom of women".
Photo:Sandra Day O'Connor is sworn in at the Senate confirmation hearing on her selection as a US Supreme Court justice, September 1981 (Credit: Keystone/Consolidated News Pictures/Getty Images)
We hear from the women who started "Reclaim the Night" marches in the north of England in 1977 - a time when a serial killer nicknamed the Yorkshire Ripper was murdering women. The women felt police were policing their behaviour rather than that of men by instructing them to stay home at night. We speak to Hallie Rubenhold author of The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper for a comparison of the treatment and expectations of women in the 19th and 20th century. Plus we go to Mexico and the neuropsychologist who met and discovered the motivations behind the country's first female serial killer - a famous woman wrestler - who strangled old women. It's 30 years since the Russian city of Leningrad voted to abandon the name of the leader of the Russian revolution - Vladimir Lenin - and to return to its historic name of St Petersburg and we hear the famous British naturalist and broadcaster David Attenborough remembering his first visit to the tropics of West Africa. Finally, we bring you the remarkable story behind the discovery of the jet stream –the high speed air currents which profoundly affect our environment all-round the globe.
Photo: women taking part in a Reclaim the Night march. Credit: BBC
Photo:women taking part in a Reclaim the Night march. Credit: BBC
On Easter Sunday 1967 the Reverend Albert Cleage re-named his church in Detroit the Shrine of the Black Madonna. He preached that if man was made in God's image there was little chance that Jesus was white as most of the world's population is non-white. Plus, how British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher wowed the Soviet Union with a live TV interview in 1987; how the death of singer Karen Carpenter raised the profile of the anorexia eating disorder; and the story of two Englishmen who were kidnapped on an orchid-hunt in Colombia.
Photo: Black Madonna and Child (Courtesy of BLAC Detroit)
South Africa fights for cheaper drugs during the AIDS epidemic, the man born into slavery in Mauritania, trying to end the troubles in Northern Ireland, Banksy’s first street art and a sex therapy legend. With Max Pearson
The hunt to find the Jamaican drug lord wanted for extradition to the United States, the six men trapped in a simulated space ship for a year and a half, the mother of the Swedish welfare state, the New York drag scene of the 1990s and a classic cold war chess match which was much more than just a game.
With Max Pearson
(Jamaican police on patrol after a frenzy of gang and drug violence in Kingston, May 24 2010. Credit: Anthony Foster/Getty Images)
The women of Egypt's Arab Spring; the underground abortion network in 1960s America; Greece's champion of the Parthenon Marbles, Melina Mercouri; China’s most powerful 19th-century ruler, and the doctor who was India’s 1966 Miss World.
Photo: Hend Nafea protesting in Tahrir Square in January 2011. (Copyright Hend Nafea)
Churchill's Iron Curtain speech about the Cold War, the Sharpeville massacre in South Africa which radicalised many anti-apartheid movements and we hear from a man whose relatives were killed when police bombed the home of African-American radicals in the US. Plus how Nauru became a Pacific island limbo for asylum seekers and the first man to dive to the deepest point on the planet - the bottom of the Mariana Trench. We'll also hear from a BBC science correspondent about why we know more about space than the deepest depths of the ocean. Photo: Winston Churchill at the podium delivering his "Iron Curtain" speech, at Westminster College in Fulton Missouri, 5th March 1946 (PA)
An eyewitness account of the overthrow of Ghana's famous independence leader. And we examine Nkrumah's legacy with Prof. Gareth Austin from Cambridge University. Plus the story of a heroic African WW2 airman, the scientists who alerted the world to the threat of acid rain, a Nobel Peace Prize winner on the 1990s campaign to ban landmines and an inside account of Ireland's financial crisis.
Photo: Kwame Nkrumah c 1955 (Getty Images)
As part of our Black History coverage we look back at the Black Panthers and ask Professor Clayborne Carson of Stanford University "How radical was the US black rights group?" Also, we bring you an archive interview with Mary Wilson of the Supremes, we delve into the question of compensation after the abolition of slavery - and no, not compensation for the people who had been enslaved, but for the former slave owners. Also, how one descendent of slaves, James Dawkins, discovered his ancestors' connection with the British writer Richard Dawkins. And, looking back at the story of Henrietta Lacks the African-American whose cells revolutionised medical science.
Photo: Schoolchildren at a Black Panthers breakfast club. Credit: Shutterstock
More than 400 civilians were killed when two US precision bombs hit the Amiriya air raid shelter in western Baghdad on the morning of 13 February 1991. The Americans claimed that the building had served as a command and control centre for Saddam Hussein's forces. It was the largest single case of civilian casualities that ocurred during Operation Desert Storm. Also in this week's programme, a drug scandal from the 1970s which blighted the lives of generations, rare archive of the celebrated British artist, Francis Bacon, the 1980s New York Street News newspaper set up to help the homeless and we hear from a nurse from West Africa who devoted her life to the British health service.
Photo: Inside the Amiriya air-raid shelter following the US bombing (Kaveh Kazemi/Getty Images)
In August 1988, people took to the streets of Burma, or Myanmar, to protest against the country's military government. The bloody uprising would lead to the rise of Aung San Suu Kyi as the country's pro-democracy leader. Also, the epidemic of drug use among US troops in Vietnam in the 1970s, the first Eurostar train service and the launch of the spectacular Moscow State Circus in 1971
PHOTO: Protestors in Rangoon in 1988 (Getty Images)
In the early months of 2011 a wave of social unrest swept across the Arab world as people protested against repressive and authoritarian regimes, economic stagnation, unemployment and corruption. It began with reaction to the self-immolation of a young market trader in Tunisia, but soon became an outpouring of resentment after generations of fear. On The History Hour, Professor Khaled Fahmy of Cambridge University, helps us unravel the roots of the uprisings, describes what it was like to be there, and looks at why things haven't turned out as the protesters had wanted.
Photo: Libyan anti-Gaddafi protesters wave their old national flag as they stand atop an abandoned army tank in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi on February 28, 2011.(Credit PATRICK BAZ/AFP via Getty Images)
Hitler made his first attempt at seizing power in Germany in 1923, ten years before he eventually became Chancellor. The failed "beer hall putsch" - so named because it started in a beer hall in the southern city of Munich - would become a foundational part of the Nazis' self-mythology. Professor Frank McDonough tells us more.
Plus, more Nazis with The Turner Diaries, the novel that inspired the US far right; anti-Sikh riots in India; the birth of Swahili-language publishing; and the house fire in New Cross, South London, which led to a Black People's Day of Action.
PHOTO: Nazi members during the Beer Hall Putsch, Munich, Germany 1923 (Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
In 1954, Puerto Rican militants opened fire in the US House of Representatives, wounding five Congressmen - we hear how the assault was one of many previous attacks on American democracy. Plus, the coup attempt in Spain in 1981, India's first woman lawyer and landing a probe on Titan, one of Saturn's moons.
PHOTO: Lolita Lebron and two other Puerto Rican activists are arrested in 1954 (Getty Images)
How US inmates turned to Buddhism to face execution in 1990s Arkansas, and we look at the history of the death penalty in the US with Prof Vivien Miller. Plus, the truth of a space "strike", the 70s book that predicted global decline in 2020, sequencing the Ebola virus and we hear the world's oldest song.
Photo: Anna Cox and inmate Frankie Parker.
Unesco - the United Nations Scientific, Cultural and Educational Organisation - was set up 75 years ago, in the aftermath of the Second World War.
It’s probably best known for its work protecting cultural monuments and areas of natural beauty around the world, but when it was founded, its aim was to use education as a means of sustaining peace after the horrors of the war.
In this episode of The History Hour: Unesco’s work on race and tolerance, its effort in the 1960s to save Egyptian treasures from the rising waters of the Aswan Dam, Le Corbusier’s attempt to build a model city in India, the fight to protect the Great Barrier Reef and the tragic story of the Bamiyan Buddhas in Afghanistan.
We hear from eye-witnesses to some classic moments in cinema history – from It’s a Wonderful Life to Satyajit Ray’s Apu trilogy via Studio Ghibli, the Sound of Music and Charlie Chaplin’s Great Dictator.
Plus, film critic Helen O’Hara tells us about the history of Christmas movies.
Photo: one of the final scenes from Frank Capra’s It’s A Wonderful Life, featuring James Stewart, Donna Reed, Carol Coombs, Jimmy Hawkins, Larry Simms and Karolyn Grimes, clockwise from top (photo by Herbert Dorfman/Corbis via Getty Images)
How Pakistan's first democratic elections in 1970 led to war, the break up of Pakistan and the creation of a new country, Bangladesh. Also Gibraltar under Spanish blockade plus refugees from Namibia’s war of independence, Britain’s first reality TV family and Bing Crosby’s White Christmas.
Photo East Pakistan 1971 The flag of Bangladesh is raised at the Awami League headquarters. Credit Getty Images
When Chief Albert Luthuli won the Nobel Peace Prize he was living under a banning order in rural South Africa. He won the prize for advocating peaceful opposition to the Apartheid regime. We hear from his daughter Albertina and speak to a South African historian about his legacy. Plus the cave discovery in France that changed the way we think about Neanderthals, the best-selling African-American crime writer Chester Himes, celebrating 100 years since a cinematic first and the reintroduction of beavers that's helping restore Scotland's ecosystem. (Picture: Albert Luthuli receives the Nobel Peace Prize in 1961. Credit: Keystone/Hulton Archive)
In May 1991, the brutal Ethiopian dictator, Colonel Mengistu and his military regime were on the verge of collapse after years of civil war. The end came when a Tigrayan-led rebel movement advanced on the capital Addis Ababa and took power. We get a first-hand account from an American diplomat and hear how the events of 1991 contributed to the current crisis in Ethiopia. Plus, the controversy in France over banning headscarves and other religious symbols from schools, the Nazis' terrifying V1 bombing campaign in World War Two and the story of the Haitian slave leader, Toussaint Louverture.
Photo: EPRDF rebels in Addis Ababa, 28 May, 1991 (BBC)
We look back at the fight for disability rights in the UK and India in the 1990s, plus the remarkable life of Helen Keller as told by her great niece, how a Rwandan Paralympic volleyball team made history, and the invention of the iconic disability vehicle, the Invacar. And we speak to Colin Barnes, Emeritus Professor of Disability Studies at Leeds University, about the historic struggle for disabled rights and recognition.
Photo: A disabled woman on her mobility scooter is carried away by four policemen after obstructing the traffic outside the Houses of Parliament. Credit: PA Archive/PA Images
Sirimavo Bandaranaike was elected prime minster of Sri Lanka, or Ceylon as it was known then, in 1960 following the assassination of her husband, Solomon Bandaranaike and became the first female prime minister in the world. We hear from Dr Asanga Welikala about her legacy. Plus the first Arab leader to visit Israel, the former hostage taken captive by Somali pirates in 2008 who came to sympathise with their plight and the Jewish refugees given sanctuary by America during WW2. Also the revolutionary and graphic book for women published in 1973 which helped us understand women's bodies and is now published in 33 different languages.
Photo: Sirimavo Bandaranaike the Prime Minister of Ceylon (later Sri Lanka), 1960. Credit Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images
In 1985 a group of anonymous female artists in New York began dressing up with gorilla masks on their heads and putting up fly-posters around the city's museums and galleries. We hear from two of the original Guerrilla Girls, who launched a campaign to demand greater representation for women and minorities in the art world. Also on the programme, the rarely heard voices of Africans who were forced to take sides in WW1; how Pluto lost its status as a planet, the invention of a revolutionary sign language, Makaton, in the 1970s, and changing 20th century theories of child rearing.
PHOTO: Some of the Guerrilla Girls in 1990 (Getty Images)
In 1995, the Israeli prime minister, Yitzhak Rabin, was murdered at a peace rally in Tel Aviv. We hear how his death scuppered hopes of peace in the Middle East. Plus, the racism endured by children born to black American soldiers and German mothers after World War Two, the rebuilding of Dresden's most famous church, and nude theatre in London and New York.
PHOTO: Yitzhak Rabin in 1993 (Getty Images)
Eyewitness accounts of moments in US presidential history: Inside JFK's election victory, remembering Shirley Chisholm - the first African American from a major party to make a presidential run, plus a senator's account of the Watergate hearings, the rise of the religious right and the story of President Bush's 9/11.
Photo: US President John F. Kennedy giving his first State of the Union address to Congress in January 1961. (Credit: NASA/SSPL/Getty Images)
In the grips of a drug crisis, why Portugal took a radical approach in 2001 and became the first country in the world to decriminalise all drugs. Also searching for those who disappeared during apartheid rule in South Africa, how mistakes with the initial production of the polio vaccine made thousands of children ill in 1995, plus the black women who helped propel NASA's space programme and Joan Littlewood a giant in 20th century British theatre.
(Image: Staffers interview a new patient in Lisbon, Portugal (Credit: Horacio Villalobos - Corbis/Corbis via Getty Images)
In June 1980, US media mogul Ted Turner launched the first TV station dedicated to 24 hour news, Cable News Network or CNN. We get a first-hand account of the early days of a channel that transformed news and politics. Plus, the end of Lebanon's civil war, the long fight for full voting rights for African-Americans and Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's plan to become a film mogul.
(PHOTO: Ted Turner attends official CNN Launch event at CNN Techwood Drive World Headquarters in Atlanta Georgia, June 01, 1980 (Photo by Rick Diamond/Getty Images)
We present five eyewitness accounts of moments in British black history. Including the late Sam King remembering the voyage of the Empire Windrush, plus Britain's first black headteacher Yvonne Conolly, Dr William Lez Henry on confronting the Far Right in the battle of Lewisham, Reggae star David Hinds on fighting the nightclub colour bar in 1970s Birmingham and Trix Worrell on the creation of the pioneering and hugely popular TV comedy Desmond's. Max Pearson is joined by Colin Grant, the writer, broadcaster and author of Homecoming: Voices of the Windrush Generation.
Photo: Newly arrived Jamaican immigrants on board the 'Empire Windrush' at Tilbury, 22nd June 1948: (Douglas Miller/Keystone/Getty Images)
The trial which linked a senior Italian politician to the Mafia, the death of the charismatic Egyptian President - Gamal Abdel Nasser, a whale rescue which brought together cold war enemies, the German house which witnessed a century of change and the birth of Google.
Photo: Giulio Andreotti in 1983. Credit: Mondadori Portfolio/Getty Images
An Iraqi father remembers the day in September 2007 when US private security guards opened fire on civilians in central Baghdad killing 17 people, including his 9-year-old son. Plus, former president Ellen Johnson Sirleaf on negotiating the cancellation of Liberia's massive debt; the chaos of Florida's 'hanging chads' in the 2000 US elections; when Nelson Mandela visited Detroit; and the end of the Galileo space project.
Photo: An Iraqi looks at a burnt car on the site where Blackwater guards opened fire on civilians in Baghdad on 16 September 2007 (Credit ALI YUSSEF/AFP via Getty Images)
Max Pearson brings you a roundup of this week’s Witness History stories of resistance from the last 70 years. From the early days of opposition to President Alexander Lukashenko in Belarus, through the Mau Mau uprising in Kenya, a photographer's memories of the 1989 demonstrations in China, an iconic civil rights story from the USA, to Argentina and the women who are still demonstrating in the hope of discovering what became of their children under military rule.
Photo: a lone protestor, who became known as Tank Man, in Tiananmen Square in China in June 1989. Credit: Stuart Franklin/Magnum.
How Indian women in the 1990s campaigned to stop the sale of alcohol in the state of Andhra Pradesh to protect women from domestic violence and safeguard family finances. The history of America's healthcare system, how the UN was eventually persuaded to apologise for the 2010 cholera outbreak in Haiti and the horror of being caught up in one of the most notorious hi-jackings of the 1970s, plus the birth of Reddit, one the world's most successful websites.
Photo A shop selling alcohol in India. Credit Getty.
How author and former intelligence officer Ian Fleming created the British super-spy, James Bond plus, how the British government shifted social care for the disabled away from large institutions and into the community and the Cape Town bombings in 1990s South Africa. Also how a British Airways jumbo jet flew through a volcanic ash cloud and survived and the birth of the Sony Walkman, a device that changed listening habits forever.
Photo: Ian Lancaster Fleming, British author and creator of the James Bond character, in 1958. (Getty Images)
Margaret Ekpo helped establish Nigerian independence and became one of the country's first female MPs. We hear from her grandson and speak to a Nigerian feminist about why Nigeria has so few women in government today. Plus the US Supreme Court decision that threatens the voting rights of Black Americans, the policeman turned protestor who was part of the Occupy Wall Street protest, America's first woman combat pilot and the bittersweet memories of the Gaelic-speaking community who left the remote islands of St Kilda in 1930.
PHOTO: Margaret Ekpo in London in August 1953 (ANL/Shutterstock)
Randy Weaver was a white separatist in Idaho in the north-west United States who was wanted by the government on firearms charges. When government agents approached his remote cabin on Ruby Ridge in August 1992, it was the start of an eleven day siege involving hundreds of police officers – which ended with the deaths of Weaver’s wife and teenage son, along with a US marshal. The incident would become a touchstone for the American far right.
Plus, growing up with Saddam Hussein, the invention of the asthma inhaler and digging up King Richard III of England.
PHOTO: Randy Weaver (C) shows a model of his Ruby Ridge, Idaho cabin to US Senator Arlen Specter, R-PA, during Senate hearings investigating the events surrounding the 1992 standoff with federal agents (PAMELA PRICE/AFP via Getty Images).
At the start of the Lebanese civil war in 1975, Beirut’s luxury hotel district was turned into a battlefield, with rival groups of gunmen holed up in some of the most expensive accommodation in the Middle East. We hear from two former employees of the Holiday Inn about what came to be known as the Battle of the Hotels. Also in today's programme, the first radar, the invention of the ventilator, and how women in Turkey overhauled decades-old laws on rape and sexual assault.
Photo: The ruins of the Holiday Inn. (Credit: Getty Images)
It’s 75 years this week since the dropping of atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which led to Japan’s surrender to Allied forces and the end of the Second World War. We hear first-hand accounts of military turning points in the Pacific including the attack on Pearl Harbour and the Battle of Midway, and historian Ian Buruma explains the context for Japan’s attack on the US. We also hear about the impact of the atomic bomb in Nagasaki on civilians, about Japanese-American citizens imprisoned in internment camps in the US, and about the writing of Japan’s post-war constitution.
Picture: Mushroom cloud over Nagasaki after bombing by atomic bomb on 9th August 1945 ( US Air Force photo/PA)
Surviving the Atlantic alone in a liferaft, Spain's historic 1960s tourism boom, the death of the infamous Nazi Heinrich Himmler, plus fighting Australia's bushfires and we remember a groundbreaking Latino writer. Photo: Photo: Steve Callahan shows how he hunted fish from his life raft. © Steve Callahan
On 16th October 1995 hundreds of thousands of black American men marched on Washington D.C. in an attempt to put black issues back on the government agenda. We hear from one woman who went on the march. Plus the first women's refuge opens in Afghanistan, the son of the man behind the failed plot to kill Hitler in 1944, campaigning to protect the Borneo rain forest, and the world's fastest vaccine maker.
(Photo:The Million Man March, Credit:TIM SLOAN/AFP/Getty Images)
The horrors of South Korea's so-called Social Purification project, the vanished Chinese sailors who left their mark on Liverpool after the Second World War and the return of a huge ancient monument to Ethiopia from Italy. Also fighting for the rights of Jewish women at the Western Wall in Jerusalem plus the origins of the holiday camp, Club Med.
Photo: Seung-woo Choi talking to reporters. Credit BBC.
Extreme lockdown half a century ago: the TB children forced to endure years of isolation in a sanatorium; the unveiling of looted Nazi art works, the Rolling Stones in the dock, calls for democracy in 1990s Nepal, and the campaign to ban dangerous skin-lightening products in South Africa.
Picture: boys sleep on the balcony of the Craig-y-nos TB sanatorium in Wales (Credit: private collection of the family of Mari Friend, a former patient at Craig-y-nos)
As the world begins to consider how to emerge from the Coronavirus pandemic, we look back at economic crises of the past and how countries have responded to them. Max Pearson hears about America's "New Deal" in the 1930s, South Korea's transformation in the 1950s and Chile's "miracle economy" of the 1970s. Plus, Tanzania and its African form of socialism, and economic shock therapy in Russia in the 1990s.
PHOTO: President Franklin D Roosevelt in 1935 (Getty Images).
How whistle-blowers implicated UN peacekeepers and international police in the forced prostitution and trafficking of Eastern European women into Bosnia in the late 1990s.
Plus, how Swiss psychiatrist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross changed the way we think about death and dying when she developed her Five Stages of Grief; Beethoven's role in China's Cultural Revolution; the "friendship train" between India and Bangladesh; and the controversial teaching exercise which segregated children by whether they had blue or brown eyes.
Picture: the United Nations Peacekeeping Force patrols the Bosnian capital Sarajevo in March 1996 (Credit: Roger Lemoyne/Liaison/Getty Images)
Eyewitness accounts of important moments in recent African American history. We hear from the daughter of the man named in the court case which became a turning point in the battle for civil rights, plus the sister of a teenage girl killed in a racist bomb attack. We hear how the winning performance of an all-black basketball team helped change America's attitude to segregation in sport. Plus Rodney King whose attack by police in 1991 was caught on camera and seen by millions - the later acquittal of the officers sparked days of rioting. Finally we hear from Bilal Chatman who was sentenced to 150 years in prison under the 1994 'three strikes law' which disproportionately affected black Americans. Putting it all into context, presenter Max Pearson talks to Professor Gloria Browne-Marshall of John Jay College of Criminal Justice.
How a bloody 1960s revolution changed East Africa. We hear an eyewitness account and talk to Professor Emma Hunter of Edinburgh University. Plus the birth of ecotourism in Costa Rica, the post-war origin of the World Health Organisation, the man who created the world's first portable defibrillator, and remembering the artist Christo.
PHOTO: Ugandan revolutionary and self-styled Field Marshal John Okello (1937 - 1971), leader of the Afro-Shirazi anti-Arab coup in Zanzibar, circa 1964. (Photo by Pix/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)
Forty years on from the Gwangju uprising in South Korea, the book that changed the way we eat, plus the dangers of being a Congolese conservationist. Also, revealing accounts of British wartime leader Winston Churchill from his doctor, and the pioneering African-American dress designer who designed Jackie Kennedy's wedding dress.
Photo: soldiers beating men in Gwangju in May 1980. Credit: 5.18 Memorial Foundation/AFP via Getty Images
During times of crisis in the UK, World War Two is often remembered as a period when the country rallied together to fight a common enemy. But as Simon Watts finds out from the BBC archives, there was a crime wave during the war years, with a massive increase in looting and black marketeering. Also in the programme, the first 3D printers, plus a black policeman recalls the 1980 Miami riots, Hong Kong's city within a city and explaining autism.
PHOTO: A government poster from World War Two (Getty Images)
Why Japanese women had to wait until 1999 to be allowed to take the pill, the Dutch 'Prince of scandal', plus the flatulent fish that prompted a Cold War scare, the first helpline for children and the joy of being liberated from Nazi occupation on The Channel Islands.
(Photo: A collection of contraceptive pills. Getty Images)
Eyewitness accounts of the fall of Nazi Germany and the end of the Second World War in Europe. Using unique interviews from the BBC's archives we bring you men and women who fought in the battle for Berlin, and some of those who were with Hitler in his final days. We present the story of a German woman who survived the start of Soviet occupation, and we meet the historian whose 1995 exhibition challenged Germans' view of the war. Plus the sounds of VE Day in London, 8th May 1945, as reported by the BBC at the time. Putting it all into context, presenter Max Pearson talks to Dr Mary Fulbrook, Professor of German History at University College London and author of the award winning book "Reckonings" about the aftermath of the war and the quest for justice.
(Photo by ullstein bild via Getty Images)
A new strain of flu emerged in East Asia in 1957 and spread all over the world. Known at the time as “Asian flu”, it killed more than a million people. We hear from a woman who survived the virus and speak to Mark Honigsbaum, author of The Pandemic Century: One Hundred Years of Panic, Hysteria and Hubris. Plus, Indonesia’s transgender rights movement, the assassination of the UN’s first Middle East mediator, conflict in the Galapagos Islands, and the trees that survived the atomic bomb in Hiroshima.
Photo: Americans worried about "Asian flu" wait their turns at Central Harlem District Health clinic in October 1957. Credit: Getty Images
The grandson of the last surviving African-born US slave, plus the story behind the portable hospital breathing ventilator that was a precursor to those helping save coronavirus lives; also on the programme the Pakistani welfare hero, the deadly explosion which sent 130 million gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, and candid insights from one of America's greatest playwrights.
50 years since the Apollo 13 mission, how millions of TV viewers followed the famous rescue of the three NASA astronauts. Also, the women who led the way in America’s space programme by spending two weeks under water and what happened when Skylab crashed to Earth in 1979. Plus, a collision on board the Mir space station in 1997 and the last men on the Moon.
PHOTO: The crew of Apollo 13 after their rescue (Getty Images)
In a special edition of the History Hour, Max Pearson looks back at some of the major technological milestones of recent years. We hear about the Californian computer club where the founders of Apple cut their teeth, about the inventors of the webcam and about the unlikely pioneers of home shopping. Plus, the launch of the iPhone and one of the very first social networks.
PHOTO: Len Shustek, former member of the Homebrew Computer Club.
Trailblazing British lawyer Rose Heilbron was the first female judge at London's famous Old Bailey criminal court. Her daughter Hillary Heilbron QC remembers how hard she had to fight to be accepted. Dana Denis-Smith, founder of the First 100 Years Project about the history of women in law, discusses women's participation in legal professions around the world.
Plus, being a Muslim in China, the Swedish warship restored after 300 years, the assassination that aimed to revenge the Amritsar massacre, and Pando, the biggest living organism in the world by mass.
Photo: English KC (King's Counsel) Rose Heilbron (1914 - 2005) arrives at the House of Lords in London, for the traditional champagne breakfast hosted by the Lord Chancellor at the start of the Michaelmas Term for the law courts, 2nd October 1950. (Credit William Vanderson/Fox Photos/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
How an LGBTQ+ activist decided to commemorate friends who had died of AIDS with a quilt, plus sequencing the 1918 flu virus, five years of war in Yemen, the story of a child abandoned in Hong Kong, and an attack on South Korea.
(Photo: A section of the AIDS Memorial Quilt. Getty Images)
In 1990, NASA launched the historic mission which put into orbit the Hubble Space Telescope. The orbiting observatory has revolutionized astronomy and allowed us to peer deeper than ever before into the Universe. We hear from astronaut, Kathryn Sullivan. Plus, China's cure for malaria, the "Red Scare" in Hollywood in the 1940s and 50s, and a pioneering sexual harassment case at the US Supreme Court.
PHOTO: The Hubble Space Telescope (NASA)
A special edition looking at how the world has battled deadly viruses over the past 100 years, We have eyewitness accounts of the 1918 flu, and the recent struggle against SARS, we hear how a vaccine saved millions from Polio, and the moment the world discovered the killer viruses known as Marburg Fever and Ebola in the 1960s and 70s.
(Photo: An American policeman wearing a mask to protect himself from the outbreak of Spanish flu. Credit:Topical Press Agency/Getty Images)
How the British army helped rebuild the German car industry after WW2, plus the fight to ban leaded petrol, psychiatry as punishment in the USSR, striking South Asian women in 1970s Britain and 'Womenomics' in Japan.
Picture: Major Ivan Hirst (right) driving the 1000th Beetle off the production line at Wolfsburg in March 1946 (Credit: Volkswagen AG)
How a former prisoner in Iran fought to free her friends, a 200-year-old Antarctic mystery, eradicating small pox, the first mobile phone and rebel nuns in the US.
PHOTO: Sarah Shourd in 2010 (Getty Images)
In October 1991, an international protocol to protect the world’s last wilderness, Antarctica, from commercial exploitation was agreed at a summit in Madrid. Louise Hidalgo talks to one of the environmentalists who led a successful campaign to protect the ice continent. Also, how meditation changes the brain, the Iraqi "supergun affair", and political art in Nigeria.
Picture: Blue icebergs in Antarctica (Credit: Getty Images)
A look back at some of the most influential books of modern times, including an interview with the publisher who first spotted Harry Potter's potential. Plus, Chairman Mao's Little Red Book, Erica Jong's Fear of Flying, Brazilian bestseller Diary of a Favela, and dating handbook The Rules.
Picture: JK Rowling signs copies of the final Harry Potter book "Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows" at the Natural History Museum in London, 2007. (Justin Goff\UK Press via Getty Images)
The prejudice faced by London's first black policeman, how a new sign language emerged in 1980s Nicaragua, the Native American casino boom, plus the release of Nelson Mandela and China's much maligned 19th-century dowager empress.
Photo: London's first black policeman PC Norwell Roberts beginning his training with colleagues at Hendon Police College, London, 5th April 1967. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
The hurried signing of the Treaty of Rome in 1957 which led to greater European unity, plus 1992 - when the British royal family started to reform its role after a year of scandal and disaster. Also on the programme, the horrific gang rape which prompted India to rethink its laws, the storm that helped British tree experts make an important scientific discovery and the woman born to slaves who became the first self-made female millionaire.
Photo: European leaders at the Palazzo dei Conservatori in Rome. Credit: Keystone/Getty Images
This week we're looking at extinction. The deadly fungus that's killing amphibians, the story of the Dodo, plus why discovering that whales 'sing' helped to save them. Also, the book that changed attitudes to the environment and the 'Frozen Zoo' that aims to preserve endangered DNA for future generations.
(Photo: dead frog infected with Chytrid Fungus. Credit: Forrest Brem)
The fall of East Germany's secret police; racism, injustice and a child execution in the US, plus the killing of Osama Bin Laden; the woman who negotiated peace in the Philippines, and the man who saved British aristocrats' country houses.
Photo Photo:East Germans streaming into the secret police headquarters in Berlin on the night of January 15th 1990. Credit: Zöllner/ullstein bild/Getty Images.
In 2009, Uruguay became the first country in the world to give a laptop computer to every child in state primary schools. We hear from the man whose initiative is credited with transforming the lives of students and teachers. Plus, a US soldier's account of the battle for the Iraqi city of Fallujah in 2004, and memories of the Brazilian rubber-tapper and environmentalist Chico Mendes.
PHOTO: Two Uruguayan children enjoying their laptops (Courtesy Plan Ceibal)
In 1972 a book which outlined the possible future of the world became a best-seller. 'The Limits to Growth' was based on computer modelling which suggested that if economic growth remained unfettered, there'd be a 'traumatic' decline in civilisation from 2020. It also suggested global policy changes which could prevent a downward trend. Find out which path the world took and why...
Plus, why East German punks were targeted by the secret police in the 1980s, a top UN negotiator remembers how peace was won in El Salvador in 1991, the first black sitcom in Britain and the launch of the Chippendales - the first male strip show for women - in 1979.
Photo: Front cover of 'The Limits to Growth' published in 1972.
On 24th December 1979 Soviet troops poured into Afghanistan in support of an anti-government coup. The Soviet occupation would last for nine years.
Plus, the hidden history of the board game Monopoly, the invention of chemotherapy, the heaviest aerial bombardment of the Vietnam war at Christmas 1972, and the street-performer origins of the global circus phenomenon Cirque du Soleil.
Picture: Russian tanks take up positions in front of the Darulaman (Abode of Peace) Palace in Kabul, January 1980. (Henri Bureau/Corbis/VCG via Getty Images)
In this edition the fall of the Ceaușescus in Romania in December 1989, a global panic over bees in the early 2000s and WW2 black GIs finally recognised decades after the war. Plus the building of Abuja as Nigeria's capital and a woman's right to pray in some Hindu temples in India.
(Photo: The army join the revolutionaries in Romania 1989. Credit: Getty Images)
On 7 December 1990 the dissident Cuban novelist and poet Reinaldo Arenas killed himself in New York after years of suffering from AIDS. Before fleeing Cuba, Arenas had been jailed for his homosexuality, sent to re-education camps and prevented from writing. We hear from his friend and fellow writer, Jaime Manrique. Plus the memories of the daughter of the renowned British sculptor, Henry Moore; how the DEA helped track down Pablo Escobar; the ill-fated voyage of Shackleton's ship The Endurance; and inside one of the most notorious prison camps in post Soviet Central Asia.
(Photo: Reinaldo Arenas. Credit: Sophie Bassouls/Sygma/Sygma/Getty Images)
The story of the American scientist Dennis Klatt who pioneered synthesised speech. He used recordings of himself to make the sounds that gave physicist Stephen Hawking a voice. Plus India:struggling to live through economic shock treatment in the 1990s, also LEO the first electronic office system, the first confirmed case of AIDS in America and when Uluru, Australia's famous natural landmark was handed back to the control of the country's indigenous people.
(Photo: BOMBAY, INDIA: World-renowned physicist Stephen Hawking answers questions with the help of a voice synthesiser during a press conference at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) in Bombay, 06 January 2001. Credit AFP)
The woman who risked her life to reveal that the army, not left-wing rebels, were responsible for the murder of six Jesuit priests in 1980s El Salvador; the moment when the Taser first hit the streets; the long legal fight to reclaim Klimt's masterpiece Woman in Gold; the man who got the Delhi metro built; and travels in Arabia with Wilfred Thesiger.
(Photo: a plaque commemorating the murdered priests in San Salvador- courtesy of David Mee)
In 2004, a German aid agency ship, Cap Anamur, was sailing to the Suez Canal, when it came across 37 Africans on a sinking rubber boat. The captain, Stefan Schmidt, rescued the men and headed for a port in Sicily to drop them off, but he and his crew were promptly arrested by the Italian authorities. Max Pearson finds out more about the incident and about the migration crisis that faced the European Union in later years.
Also this week, an eye-witness account of secret preparations by Hindu extremists to destroy the mosque in the Indian city of Ayodha in 1992; a grassroots struggle against pollution in America; and memories of the British war poet Wilfred Owen.
(Photo: the German aid agency ship Cap Anamur in 2004. Credit: Antonello NUSCA/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images)
Subversive warfare and 'fake news' in World War Two, the scandal which exposed horrific Indian police violence in the 1980s, two sides of the Iran hostages crisis in 1979, the woman who transformed cancer treatment, and a defining Berlin Wall rock concert.
Photo The actress and singer Agnes Bernelle, who was recruited to be a presenter on a fake German radio station during the war)
The feminist network that performed illegal abortions in the 1960s in Chicago, the Algerian nationals who fought alongside the French in Algeria’s war of independence and when Margaret Thatcher first expressed anti- Europe sentiment. Plus the Paris hotel that hosted Holocaust survivors at the end of the Second World War and the battle to protect the Barrier Reef. Photo courtesy of Martha Scott
1989 was a seismic year in world history and ended with the fall of the Berlin Wall, the clearest symbol of the Cold War. But it was a series of events across Europe that added to the momentum. We journey back through Poland, Hungary and East Germany ahead of that historic moment in November, through the testimonies of the people who were there at the centre of events; the Solidarity movement in Poland, the protesters in Hungary and East Germany and an account from the first people to cross the wall.
(Photo: East Germans climbing onto the top of the Berlin Wall at the Brandenburg Gate after the opening of the East German border was announced in Berlin. November 9, 1989. Credit: REUTERS/Staff/Files)
A pioneer of climate change science, UK's Windscale nuclear accident, Kenya's Green Belt heroine who won the Nobel Peace Prize, the man "who fed the world", and banning cars in Mexico City.
(Photo: Thick black smoke blowing out of an industrial chimney. Credit: John Giles/PA)
To mark Black History Month in the UK we look back at some landmark moments in British Black History. We hear how the famous cricketer Learie Constantine broke the colour bar, and about the Notting Hill race riots and the Bristol bus boycott. Plus, we speak to Britain’s first black female MP Diane Abbott, and one of the thousands of mixed race children born of relationships between black GIs and British women during the Second World War. With Professor Hakim Adi.
Photo: Sir Learie Constantine outside Westminster Abbey in 1966. Credit: Douglas Miller/Keystone/Getty Images.
To mark 70 years of communist China we hear from a soldier at the founding ceremony on October 1st 1949. Also, the memories of an American friend and comrade of Mao Zedong, a Red Guard who regrets the cultural revolution and the pro-communist protests in 1960s Hong Kong, plus the economic liberalisation of the 1980s. Our guide is China expert Isabel Hilton. Photo: An officer reads a newspaper to soldiers while they are waiting for the announcement of the foundation of the People's Republic of China on Tiananmen Square on October 1, 1949 in Beijing, China. (Credit: Visual China Group via Getty Images)
When the Islamic State group took over Mosul in Iraq in 2014 they flooded the internet with propaganda, claiming life under IS was fantastic. One historian living in the city decided to post a counter-narrative online, setting up a website called "Mosul Eye". Also in this edition, one black man's experience of growing up in Hitler's Germany; the gruesome death of the famous bullfighter Paquirri, switching on the Large Hadron Collider and the birth of the Sound of Music on Broadway in 1959.
(Photo: Mosul Eye website. BBC)
The distinguished British art historian Anthony Blunt was exposed as a former Soviet spy in 1979. He was one of a group of double agents recruited at Cambridge University who passed vital information to Moscow. The BBC's Gordon Corera explains the scandal which shook the British establishment.
Plus the Black Panther Party's free breakfast programme; the abolition of the Don't Ask Don't Tell policy towards LGBT troops in the US military; Ethiopian troops in South Korea; and memories of celebrated children's author CS Lewis.
Photo: Sir Anthony Blunt at the press conference in which he explained his motivation in 1979 (Credit: Aubrey Hart/Getty Images)
How the timber industry fuelled a brutal civil war in West Africa, the Honduran coup that left the president holed up in an embassy plus the Indian affirmative action controversy, the first ever voyage all the way around the globe 500 years ago and the sit-com "Friends" hits TV screens worldwide.
(Photo: Timber near Buchanan in Liberia in 2010. Credit: Getty Images)
On September 1st 1939 German forces invaded Poland. Douglas Slocombe, a British cameraman, was there at the time and filmed the build-up to the war. Also the man who resisted the Sicilian Mafia in the 1990s plus the first all-female peacekeeping force, the defining trial of holocaust denial and why Apollo 11's astronauts were put in quarantine after their historic landing on the moon.
(Image: German citizens in Gdansk (also known as Danzig) welcoming German troops during the invasion of Poland on September 3rd 1939 . Credit:EPA/National Digital Archive Poland.)
Around 10,000 children were sent by their parents to safety in the UK out of Nazi-dominated Europe in the run-up to the outbreak of WW2 in 1939. Many of the so-called Kindertransport children never saw their parents again. We hear from Dame Stephanie Shirley who arrived in London as a five-year-old girl. Also, how the legendary singer Nina Simone went to live in Liberia, plus a key breakthrough in criminal forensics, the lynching of a black teenager that galvanised America's civil rights movement, and the murder of Mexican young women in the border town of Ciudad Juarez.
(Photo:Getty Images)
Why the wolf was brought back to the US in the 1990s and the history of "rewilding", plus the liberation of Paris 75 years on, the missing children from El Salvador's civil war, the life and death of Brazil's legendary president Vargas, and the man who wanted to be a cyborg.
Photo:.A Yellowstone wolf watches biologists after being tranquilized and fitted with a radio collar during wolf collaring operations in Yellowstone National Park (William Campbell/Sygma via Getty Images)
The origins of the crisis in Kashmir, the warnings ignored about 9/11 and the arrest of the notorious terror suspect Carlos the Jackal. Plus the invention in a British back garden of the daily disposable contact lens and how Dr Seuss taught America to read.
Photo: Indian troops arriving in Kashmir in October 1947 (Getty Images)
The French colonialists who returned to France after decades in Algeria, the Catholic welcome when the British army was first deployed to Northern Ireland, plus the US nuclear submarine that went under the north pole, Britain's last battle in China in WW2 and the introduction of Community Service to help relieve overcrowded prisons.
(Photo: French repatriates leaving Algeria May 1962. (Photo by REPORTERS ASSOCIES/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images)
The eight year protest campaign which stopped the construction of a nuclear reprocessing plant at Wackersdorf in Germany, the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990 and from more than a decade later, the death of British weapons expert David Kelly, who got caught up in the aftermath of the invasion of Iraq. Also, the Warsaw uprising of 1944 and from one of the most significant discoveries of Anglo-Saxon treasure in 1939.
Picture: demonstrators fight against police during a protest at the Wackersdorf construction site (Istvan Bajzat/DPA/PA Images)
Liberation for Tunisia's women in the 1950s; gay and lesbian fake marriages in China; the Chappaquiddick incident in the US; the birth of Mamma Mia! the musical, and the discovery of the fossilised remains of humanity's oldest ancestor.
Photo: courtesy of Saida El Gueyed
To mark the 50th anniversary of the Moon landing in July 1969, five personal accounts of landmarks in space exploration. We hear from an Apollo flight controller about the moment Neil Armstrong stepped onto the lunar surface, and from one of the astronauts who survived the Apollo 13 near disaster. Plus how Laika the dog became the first living creature in space, the pioneering woman cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova, and Britain's attempt to put the Beagle 2 lander on Mars.
PHOTO: Buzz Aldrin on the Moon in July 1969 (Getty Images)
Twelve tonnes of ivory was set alight by President Daniel Arap Moi in Nairobi National Park in July 1989, to highlight the threat from poaching. The ivory burn was organised by conservationists who wanted to save the world's elephants. Plus, the closure of Britain's ground-breaking Common Cold Unit; Cuba executes top military officers, the Chinese allow sales of tampons and the first modern lesbian.
(Photo: Ivory tusks arranged in a pile and set alight. Credit: Andrew Holbrooke/Corbis/Getty Images)
Life under the Khmer Rouge in the 1970s, the Germans kidnapped by the Contras in Nicaragua in the 80s, plus how Aboriginal women took on the Australian government against nuclear waste, Anita Hill's stand against the promotion of Judge Clarence Thomas to the US Supreme Court and the birth of the Sony Walkman.
(PHOTO: CHOEUNG EK, CAMBODIA - 1993/02/01: Skulls are piled up at a monument situated outside Phnom Penh to serve as a constant reminder of the genocide under the Khmer Rouge during the Pol Pot years.. (Photo by Peter Charlesworth/LightRocket via Getty Images)
The riot that inspired the modern gay rights movement; Saddam Hussein's 1980s genocidal campaign against Iraq's Kurds; notorious British serial killers, Fred and Rose West; 50 years of fighting for fat people in America; and Joseph Heller on his seminal work, Catch-22.
Picture: the Stonewall Inn today (Getty Images)
An African-American civil rights hero, a Chinese online star, the tragic icon of Iran's reform movement and archive recordings of the psychoanalyst CG Jung. Plus the great violinist Yehudi Menuhin's love of yoga.
Photo:Roy Wilkins and Medgar Evers Being Arrested on 1st June 1963 in Jackson, Mississippi. Credit: Getty Images
How a 1950s drug helped revolutionise the treatment of mental illness. Also, how hundreds of thousands of Kosovans fled when NATO bombed former Yugoslavia. Plus, a monumental public artwork in post-Cold War Berlin, Chinese-American relations after WW2, and a trailblazing same sex wedding in the 1970s.
Photo: Nurses prepare a patient for electric shock treatment in a psychiatric hospital. (Hulton-Deutsch Collection/CORBIS/Getty Images)
Eyewitness accounts of the Allied invasion of Nazi occupied Europe on D-day, 6th June 1944. We also hear how the BBC reported events on that momentous day. Plus Vikings in England, the Gurkhas fight for justice and discovering the fate of 'The Little Prince'
Photo: The photo titled 'The Jaws of Death' shows a landing craft disembarking US troops on Omaha beach, 6th June 1944 ( Robert Sargent / US COAST GUARD)
A student protester's perspective on the Tiananmen Square massacre, the first social network on the internet, the surprisingly controversial early years of Sesame Street, the overthrow of Emperor Bokassa in the CAR, and the death of India's first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru.
Picture: Dan Wang speaking in Tiananmen Square (credit: Peter Turnley/Corbis/Getty Images)
In 2009 Ugandan MPs tried to introduce new laws against homosexuality that would include life imprisonment and even the death penalty. We speak to Victor Mukasa about his story of fighting for LGBT rights in Uganda, first as a lesbian woman and then as a trans man. Also, the early days of the environmental organisation Greenpeace, walking the Great Wall of China and fighting acid attacks on women in Bangladesh.
(Photo: Ugandan LGBT Activist Victor Mukasa May 2019. BBC)
In May 2009 the Sri Lankan army defeated the Tamil Tigers, ending a brutal 25-year civil war; also, the economists who predicted the 2008 global economic crash, plus the Nazis' stolen children, a victim of China's One Child policy, and the building of the great Karakoram Highway.
Photo: Tamil civilians standing on the roadside after crossing to a government-controlled area 2kms from the front-line, 2009 (Getty Images)
US President Richard Nixon's efforts to deal with illegal drugs in 1971, the French defeat at Dien Bien Phu in Vietnam plus the rise of Jack Ma and his Alibaba empire in China. Also the Bauhaus movement and the global TV hit 'Strictly Come Dancing'.
Photo: US President Richard Nixon (BBC)
Battling a communist insurgency in 1950s Malaya, the sinking of the Belgrano during the UK Argentine conflict, plus how Ellen DeGeneres came out to millions on US TV, also the African who made the Arctic his home because of his fear of snakes and the life of WW1 poet Rupert Brooke.
Photo: A photograph taken by a British sergeant on patrol in the Malayan jungle.. (Copyright: Keystone/Getty Images)
The huge but controversial Anglo-Saudi deal, the Sri Lankan journalist who predicted his own murder, plus remembering South Africa's historic election 25 years ago, the day NATO bombed Serbian TV, and the origin of modern Veganism. Photo: Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and King Fahd in London in 1987. Credit: Tim Graham/Getty Images.
The memories of the brother of one of the victims of the Columbine mass school shooting; plus the story behind 'A Raisin in the Sun' - the first play on Broadway by a black woman; the world's first space tourist, the origins of organic farming and the auto-destructive art movement of the 1960s.
Photo: Students from Columbine High School run under cover from police, following a shooting spree by two masked teenagers. April 20th 1999 (Mark Leffingwell/AFP/Getty Images
How an Indian religious rally in 1990 sparked the rise of Hindu nationalism, 100 years since the Amritsar Massacre plus the first wing-suit for base jumping, a US food scare in the 1960s and teaching Marilyn Monroe to dance.
(Photo LK Advani during rath yatra 15/10/1990 Credit: Getty Image)
After a brief civil war in March-April 1948, the new president of Costa Rica, Jose Figueres, took the audacious step of dissolving the Armed Forces. The Central American country is now one of just over 20 countries without a standing army - we find out more. Plus, Maya Angelou's ground-breaking memoir, I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings, and the remarkable story of the raising of the Swedish warship, the Vasa.
Photo: Costa Rican soldiers in San Jose after the end of the civil war, April 1948 (Credit: Getty Images)
Prime Minister Jim Callaghan's desperate attempts to survive a no-confidence motion in 1979, the record-breaking 20-day balloon flight around the world; plus the Nazi past of Kurt Waldheim, mindfulness and the first home pregnancy test.
Picture: James Callaghan outside 10 Downing Street (Fox Photos/Getty)
How a British doctor misled the world by linking the MMR vaccine to autism; the early rise of Hungary’s Viktor Orban also what it was like to contest the Soviet Union’s first multi-party elections plus the exposure in the 1970s of a Nazi criminal in Holland and uncovering Mexico’s Aztec past.
Photo: Dr Andrew Wakefield arrives at the General Medical Council in London to face a disciplinary panel, July 16th 2007 (Daniel Berehulak/Getty Images)
How an ancient Chinese remedy provided a 1970s breakthrough in the fight against malaria; the bombing of Dresden in the Second World War that inspired Kurt Vonnegut's anti-war novel Slaughterhouse Five; the fall of Singapore; plus the town that America built in Afghanistan's south-western desert, and 'was Lenin a mushroom' - a satirical re-writing of Soviet history.
Photo: Professor Lang Linfu (Family archives)
How allegations of child abuse engulfed Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, the campaign to return the Elgin marbles to Greece, Britain's first black headteacher, the origins of the Barbie doll and how Baroness Warsi made history.
Photo: Zoilamerica Narváez announces in a press conference that she is filing a law suit against her stepfather Daniel Ortega, March 1998 (RODRIGO ARANGUA/AFP/Getty Images):
When Venezuela was rich; surviving a mid-air airline disaster; Japan's Red Army militants of the 1970s, the origin of the swine flu epidemic and Iceland's Beer Day. Photo: Seidel/United Archives/UIG via Getty Images
Millions left dead or deformed because of chemicals used in the Vietnam war, UK cigarette smoking warnings ignored, remains of the Nazi 'Angel of Death' discovered in Brazil, the Columbia Shuttle disaster which led to huge questions about American space safety and the unrest featured in the Oscar-nominated film, Roma, where Mexican students were killed by government-trained paramilitary troops.
Photo: Child suffering from spinal deformity in rehabilitation centre in Saigon.
Why Iceland jailed 40 bankers after the 2008 financial crisis, how the Maastricht Treaty gave birth to the EU, plus America's first female airline pilots, Cameroon's historic referendum and homeless, drunk and yet a genius in the USSR.
(Photo: Protesters on the streets of Reykjavik demand answers from the government and the banks about the country's financial crisis, Nov. 2008. (Halldor Kolbeins/AFP/Getty Images)
Hitler's secretary on the last days in the bunker; a CIA operative on the killing of Che Guevara, remembering the US invasion of Iraq, a child of the Soweto Uprising and the tricky task of bringing Disneyland to France. Photo: Getty Images
In February 1979, Ayatollah Khomeini returned from exile to Iran in the defining moment of a revolution that would change his country and the whole Middle East. In a special edition of the programme, Rebecca Kesby hears eye-witness accounts from the protestors who brought down the Shah, one of the Ayatollah's aides and an American embassy official taken hostage by Khomeini supporters. She also talks to the BBC Persian Service's special correspondent, Kasra Naji.
PHOTO: Ayatollah Khomeini returning to Iran (Gabriel Duval, AFP/Getty Images.)
In January 1959 Pope John XXIII announced a council of all the world's Catholic bishops and cardinals in Rome. It led to sweeping reforms. Plus Carmen Callil recalls setting up Virago, the most successful feminist publishing house to date; India gives birth to the call centres and remembering the Carry-on films.
(Photo; Pope John XXIII at the Vatican. Credit: Getty Images)
How South Asian women led thousands of UK workers in an industrial dispute in the late 1970s, plus Dr Crippen's alleged gruesome crime, Judy Garland's emotional last performances, the 'miracle waters' in Mexico and excitement over a whale in London's River Thames.
(PHOTO: Jayaben Desai, leader of the Grunwick strike committee holding placard 1977 Credit: Getty images)
Stalin's last terror campaign against the best Soviet doctors, Castro's triumphant entry into Havana, the extraordinary story of how a destitute single mother produced a best selling memoir about her life in a Brazilian favela. Also, the controversy over 'Fat Is a Feminist Issue', and the world's only seed vault.
Photo: Yakov Rapoport, one of the few survivors of Stalin's 'Doctors' Plot'. Credit: family archive.
The discovery that proved the Vikings got to North America, a former Marxist rebel describes how his group overran an army base in El Salvador's bitter civil war in the 1980s, the enormous palace built by the Romanian communist dictator, Nicole Ceausescu, how the prolific romantic novelist Barbara Cartland was made a Dame by the Queen and the summer of 1987 when thousands of tins of marijuana washed up on a Brazilian beach.
Photo: Replicas of Norse houses from 1000 years ago at L'Anse aux Meadows. (LightRocket/Getty Images)
The most striking and well documented UFO "sightings" there have ever been plus the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the theft of the Stone of Destiny from Westminster Abbey in 1950 also one of the first electronic instruments and how Britain has long honoured its' military animals.
(Photo: Computer illustration of UFOs - Unidentified Flying Objects)
Passenger Kwame James recalls how he helped overcome the British-born Richard Reid on American Airlines flight 63. Reid had hidden explosives in his shoe which failed to go off. Plus, the US apology for the internment of thousands of Japanese Americans in WW2, the first computer password, the woman who wrote Mary Poppins and a British theatrical group tours the Sahara.
Photo: One of the shoes worn by Richard Reid on the American Airlines flight to Miami (ABC/Getty Images)
At Christmas 1968, the biggest audience in TV history watched NASA's Apollo 8 mission beam back the first pictures from an orbit around the Moon. The broadcast captured the world's imagination and put America ahead of the Soviet Union in the Cold War battle to make the first lunar landing. Plus, the rape of Nanking, WWII spy drama in the Netherlands and the woman who revolutionised the treatment of the dying.
Picture: The Earth as seen from the Moon, photographed by the Apollo 8 crew (NASA)
A child survivor of a Guatemalan army massacre during the country's brutal civil war, the women who cleared up post war Berlin, plus Armenia's 1988 earthquake, how Bokassa became Emperor of the Central African Republic, and Angela Merkel's rise to power. Photo: Ramiro as a child in Guatemala (R.Osorio)
The first man in Britain to die of AIDS, whale hunting in the South Atlantic in the 1950s, how Norway voted not to join the EU, the American adventurer who inspired the Indiana Jones stories, and Saddam Hussein's draining of Iraq's southern marshes in a bid to flush out his opponents.
Picture: Terrence Higgins (Courtesy: Dr Rupert Whitaker)
From 1942 to 1964 the US actively encouraged American farmers to hire tens of thousands of migrant workers to come to work legally from Mexico - they were known as 'braceros'; also, when Moscow invited thousands of foreign students to attend an International Youth Festival in the former USSR; a witness to the funeral of the Duke of Wellington; plus Arafat's final weeks and why was JKF's killer allowed to defect to the Soviets?
Photo: A group of Mexican Braceros picking strawberries in a field in the Salinas Valley, California in June 1963 (Getty Images)
How Japanese immigrants in Brazil fell out with each other after the end of the WW2, how Britain helped to get disabled people on the road in the 1940s plus life for Jews under Imperial Russia, the victims of Brazil’s military dictatorship in the 1970s and the American embassy hostage crisis in Tehran.
11th November 1918 saw the end of a four year war that had killed an estimated 20 million soldiers and civilians around the world. We hear eyewitness accounts of the conflict which was fought by many nations, on many continents. The historian, Professor Annika Mombauer joins Max Pearson to discuss the devastating war that changed the world. Photo: Crowds in London celebrate the signing of the Armistice on 11th November 1918 (Topical Press Agency/Getty Images)
Russia's struggles with big business, when Nigeria struck oil, why Maximilian Kolbe was made a saint, the London arrest of Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet and Desmond Tutu.
Photo: former head of Yukos Mikhail Khodorkovsky leaving the courtroom in Moscow, Russia, September 22, 2005. Credit: Sovfoto/UIG via Getty Images
The Nazi black book, a list of those to be arrested and dealt with if Germany occupied Britain, privation in wartime and Allied-occupied Austria, racial tension in 1940s Sweden, plus how Britain's Labour party moved against hereditary peers in the House of Lords in the 1990s.
A strange illness strikes Belgian teenagers, Brazil's forgotten Amazon war, diverting Mount Etna's lava, arguments over aid and trade in the UK, and the 1973 oil crisis.
(Photo: A poster saying 'out of order' is stuck on a Coca Cola vending machine in Mouscron, Belgium in 1999. Credit: Philippe Huguen/AFP/Getty Images).
In October 1968, students from two neighbouring universities in the centre of São Paulo clashed in a battle which left one dead and many injured. We hear how the so-called 'Battle of Maria Antônia' drove Brazil deeper into a military dictatorship which is still controversial to this day. Plus, a pioneering race relations case in Britain during World War 2, the invention of artificial skin and fashion in the Soviet Union.
Photo: the 'Battle of Maria Antonia', São Paulo, 1968. Credit: Agência Estado/AFP
Operation Market Garden - the failed attempt to end the war against Hitler; plus, a deadly nuclear accident in Brazil, the film of the Battle of Algiers, the last regular steam train to run in Britain and one of the Cuban Five jailed in America for spying for Fidel Castro.
(Photo: Allied planes and parachutists over Arnhem, Getty Images)
A lucky escape from a jet plane fire in the 1970s, Chamberlain's talks with Hitler in 1938 plus the killing of the South African anti-apartheid campaigner, Steve Biko. Also toxic waste being shipped around the world in the 1980s and how Britain became obsessed with the idea that aliens were responsible for crop circles.
(Photo: Ricardo Trajano as a young man. Copyright: Ricardo Trajano)
Award-winning writer Hisham Matar on life in Gaddafi's Libya, plus how British Bengalis faced the far-right in 1970s east London, the last battles of WW1, the struggle to name St.Petersburg and the first MRI scanner.
Photo: Colonel Muammar Gaddafi in Tripoli on September 27th 1969, shortly after the bloodless coup that brought him to power AFP FILES/AFP/Getty Images)
A former prisoner of the Japanese in WW2, plus Hitler's girl guides, how Benidorm became a tourist hotspot, Italian migrant tragedy in post-war Belgium, and the Lake Nyos disaster.
Photo: Allied Prisoners of War in a Japanese prison camp 1945 (British Pathé)
Hitler's architect and minister of war, Albert Speer, was one of the few top Nazis to live on into old age. In the late 1970s, following his release from Spandau prison, he gave an interview to the British journalist, Roger George Clark. Plus, the Soviet Union's campaign against alcoholism, the hostage drama that gripped West Germany, and a woman's voice from pre-colonial Nigeria.
Picture: Albert Speer standing at the gate of his house near Heidelberg in December 1979. (Credit: Roger George Clark)
Baroness Shirley Williams recalls her mother, WW2 anti-bombing protestor; 20 years since a mass killing in Omagh, the African-American photographer whose coverage of Martin Luther King's funeral won him a Pullitzer Prize, plus when TV finally came to South Africa and the birth of the instant noodle.
Photo: Vera Brittain at Euston Station, London, in 1956. Credit: Central Press/Hulton Archive/Getty Images
The treatment of Britain's First World War conscientious objectors, Iran bends the nuclear rules, the CIA's first coup in Latin America, what happened to Eastern Europe's dancing bears, and the culling in Wales of a sacred bull.
Photo: A crowd of conscientious objectors to military service during World War I at a special prison camp (Hulton Archive)
The true history of the Great Zimbabwe ruins uncovered after independence, why Churchill lost the post-war election also the first women at the US military academy West Point and the crack down on leftist supporters in the south before the Korean war.
(Photo; The iconic tower in the Great Enclosure of the Great Zimbabwe National Monument. It's one of the most important archaeological sites in Africa and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Credit; Getty Creative.)
The murder of the Russian Tsar Nicholas II and his wife, four daughters and young son in 1918, plus how the Soviet Union struggled to feed its people in the 1950s; also the IRA attacks on mounted troops in London's Hyde Park in 1982, the Zionist bombing of the British headquarters in Jerusalem in 1946 and the first steps towards a nuclear non-proliferation treaty.
(Photo: Nicholas II, Tsar and his family. From left to right - Olga, Maria,Tsar Nicholas II,Tsarina Alexandra, Anastasia, Tsarevitch Alexei and Tatiana. Credit: Press Association
The scientist at the forefront of India's first successful nuclear test in 1974, plus how an undersea mission finally found the remains of nearly 300 migrants drowned off Italy in the 1990s; also, Der Spiegel journalists under threat in Germany, and remembering two great artists - Nigeria's Chinua Achebe and Robert Mapplethorpe.
Photo: A crater marks the site of the first Indian underground nuclear test conducted 18 May 1974 at Pokhran in the desert state of Rajasthan. (PUNJAB PHOTO/AFP/Getty Images)
How a US warship downed a passenger jet killing 290 people, plus the story behind The Toilet, the controversial 1990s Russian 'masterpiece', Madeleine Albright on Kosovo, the history of adventure playgrounds. and the hunt for Deep Throat.
Photo: The USS Vincennes fires a surface to air missile towards Iran Air flight 655 on 3 July 1988 (Rudy Pahoyo)
This week, how former US President George Bush Senior took on the all-powerful National Rifle Association; the murder of the campaigning Irish journalist, Veronica Guerin; and how a Soviet submarine got stuck on a Swedish rock during the Cold War. Plus, the Cockney pilot who became known as the "King of Lampedusa" during World War Two.
(Photo: President George Bush Senior. Credit: Bachrach/Getty Images)
From the 1945 division of the peninsula, to the Korean war and the death of Kim II-sung, we have first-hand accounts from the turbulent recent history of North and South Korea. Plus, expert analysis from Dr Owen Miller of SOAS University of London.
Photo: As US infantrymen march into the Naktong River region, they pass a line of fleeing refugees during the Korean War (Getty images)
The 1968 student revolt in Communist Yugoslavia, an assassination attempt that sparked Lebanon's war, Adolf Eichmann's execution, plus the sudden death of Nigeria's strong man in less than clear circumstances and 'from couch to 5k' that inspired a global running craze.
(Photo: Sonja Licht with her fellow protester and later her husband, Milan Nikolic, at the site of the protests. Credit: Licht-Nikolic family archive)
The birth of the British health service in 1948; the battle for compensation over Thalidomide; the world's first bicycle-sharing scheme; discovering a perfectly-formed frozen baby mammoth in Siberia, and the great science-fiction writer, Isaac Asimov.
Photo: Aneurin Bevan, Minister of Health, meeting a patient at Papworth Village Hospital after the establishment of the National Health Service in 1948 (Edward G Malindine/Getty Images)
In 1998, the Indonesian dictator, President Suharto, resigned after 31 years in power. He stood down in the wake of nationwide demonstrations sparked by the killing of four student protestors. We hear from Bhatara Ibnu Reza, who was with one of the students when he died.
Plus, how a Pakistani theatre company took on the dictatorship of General Zia ul-Huq; the landmark Holocaust documentary Shoah; and the day lesbian protestors targeted the BBC news studio.
Photo: Students celebrate outside the Parliamentary buildings, Jakarta after Indonesian President Suharto announced his resignation. Credit: Adam Butler/PA
A French riot policeman's view of the violence that swept through France in May 1968; plus the man who led a team that made safe two nuclear weapons that had crashed to ground in the US. Also, the origins of Montessori education, one of the airmen on the Dambusters' raid and actor Jane Asher remembers John Osborne's radical 1950s play, Look Back in Anger.
Photo: Protesters face police in front of the Joseph Gibert bookstore, Boulevard Saint Michel in May 1968. (Credit: Jacques Marie/AFP/Getty Images)
From child king in the Second World War to post-communist prime minister, the story of Bulgaria's King Simeon II; the first ever surgery performed on a foetus in the womb, an American family selling secrets to the Soviets in the 1980s, plus the 1963 attempt to form a United States of Africa, and the earliest diagnosis of autism.
Photo: King Simeon II 1943 (credit: Bulgarian Royal Family)
Working for Britain's first female PM, the rare story of prisoners on the high seas in WW2, plus the Children's Crusade for civil right in 60s Alabama, the origin of the Royal Shakespeare Company and the story behind the Japanese TV hit, Takeshi's Castle. Photo: British Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, with husband Denis on May 4th 1979. (Credit: John Minihan/Evening Standard/Getty Images)
The story behind the secret Israeli-Palestinian peace talks in Oslo in 1993, the woman who swam from the USA to the Soviet Union, plus remembering Pablo Picasso, how art transformed notorious Scottish prisoners, and one of the most famous figures of World War One, the Red Baron. Photo: Yitzhak Rabin, Bill Clinton and Yasser Arafat at the signing ceremony for the Oslo Accord, September 13,1993. Credit: AFP/Getty Images
The birth of the modern environmental movement, Germany's 1918 Spring Offensive, the discovery of the concentration camp horrors of Bergen-Belsen plus the rebuilding of the World Trade Centre site; and the last occupiers of Europe's most westerly lighthouse.
Photo credit: Robert Sabo-Pool/Getty Images
In this week's episode, Robert Mugabe's brutal crack down on the opposition in the 1980s, a mass expulsion of Soviet spies from Britain in the 1970's and the working class film revolution of the 1960's. Plus the first frozen embryo and the death of a German student leader that sparked huge demonstrations.
(Photo: Robert Mugabe. Getty Images)
In 1998, the political parties in Northern Ireland reached a peace agreement that ended decades of war. We hear from Paul Murphy, the junior minister for Northern Ireland at the time. Plus, a cross-community choir in Bosnia and women pioneers from the worlds of finance and oceanography.
PHOTO: Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern (L) and British Prime Minister Tony Blair (R) pose with the mediator
Why the BBC started broadcasting to South and Central America, plus the My Lai Massacre, Brazil's careful transition to democracy, and Moscow's show trials in the 1930s.
Photo: Members of the BBC's Brazil service rehearsing in a London studio in 1943. Credit: BBC.
A landmark protest by deaf students in the US; the early fight for women's reproductive rights; the life and times of political thinker, Hannah Arendt; language and history in Azerbaijan, and Wonder Woman.
Picture: Student protestors, courtesy of Gallaudet University in Washington DC
How China's barefoot doctor scheme revolutionised rural healthcare; plus M*A*S*H, the ground-breaking American TV show that taught a generation about war; the assassination of the Swedish prime minister Olof Palme; the German and Russian soldiers who fought on the Eastern Front in the First World War; and the Angel of the North, a huge steel sculpture that has become an icon for the north-east of England.
Picture: Gordon Liu
How a young boy lived with a rare genetic disorder; plus "Ghana Must Go" - when 1 million Africans were expelled from Nigeria, battling the last major smallpox epidemic in India, reporting the Jimmy Swaggart scandal and the story behind the acclaimed novel "Infinite Jest" (Photo: David Vetter and his mother Carol-Ann Demaret Credit: Carol-Ann Demaret)
We hear from Mahnaz Afkhami, Iran's first ever minister for Women's Affairs, appointed in 1975. Plus, the so-called "headscarf revolutionaries" who fought for improvements in Britain's notoriously dangerous fishing industry, a member of the Viet Cong recalls one of the biggest battles of the Vietnam War, finding the lost notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, and the 1970s lesbian separatist movement in America.
Photo: Mahnaz Afkhami at the UN in 1975. (Mahnaz Afkhami)
The plane crash that killed eight of Manchester United's top players, the courage of the British Suffragettes, uncovering South Africa's nuclear secrets, plus tracking down Nazis in South America and the attack on a South Korean airliner ahead of the Seoul Olympics.
(Photo: Plane wreckage at Munich airport - AFP/Getty Images)
In January 1968, North Vietnamese troops and Viet Cong guerrillas launched a huge surprise attack on towns, cities and military bases across South Vietnam. The events of the Tet offensive had a profound impact on American public opinion and marked a turning point in the war.
Plus the roots of the Rohingya crisis, the birth of gospel music, Ireland's Bloody Sunday, and the end of corporal punishment in Britain.
Photo: Julian Pettifer reporting under fire near the Presidential Palace in Saigon, 31st January 1968 (BBC)
When North Korea and the US came close to war in 1968; plus Salvador Dali, re-creating Francis Bacon's studio, the first veggie burger and the origins of Lego Photo: Members of the USS Pueblo's crew being taken into custody. Credit: Korean Central News Agency/Korea News Service
After Apartheid was abolished in the 1990s, South Africa set up a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to try to confront the legacy of its brutal past. We speak to Justice Sisi Khampepe, who served on the Commission. Plus, the inspiring story of the disabled Irish author, Christoper Nolan; an inside account of two of America's most famous presidential speeches; and the role of British women in World War I.
(PHOTO: Pretoria South Africa: President Nelson Mandela (L) with Archbishop Desmond Tutu, acknowledges applause after he received a five volumes of Truth and Reconciliation Commission final report from Archbishop Tutu. Credit: Getty Images.)
When France stopped Britain joining Europe in the 1960s, the boy who set a record for continuously staying awake, the launch of the first iPhone, hands reaching out in friendship between Britain and Germany after the Second World War, and a notorious massacre during Algeria's bitter internal conflict of the 1990s.
Photo: Charles de Gaulle, President of France, at a press conference on 14th January 1963 at which he said Britain was not ready to join the European Economic Community, now the EU (Credit: Central Press/Getty Images)
Mrs Yeltsin, on the day her husband shocked the world, half a century since the Mafia's grip on America was exposed, the 1999 protests in Iran - the biggest since the revolution - a student tells us how a photograph led to his death sentence and the Brazilian woman hijacker who took her kids along for the ride.
How Black activists invented a new holiday, flying around the world without refuelling, what not to do if you win a fortune, and the mountaineers who risked their lives climbing the spires of Leningrad during WW2. Then there's the obligatory Christmas board game - Trivial Pursuit.
Picture: Children at the first Kwanzaa celebration - courtesy of Terri Bandele.
One of the most successful American films of all time was released on Christmas Day 1962. Based on the best-selling book by author Harper Lee, To Kill A Mockingbird starred Gregory Peck as a lawyer who stood against prejudice in the Deep South of the USA. Louise Hidalgo has been speaking to Gregory Peck's son Carey Peck.
Plus, the life of Indian independence leader BR Ambedkar; a short-lived period of peace in Somalia under the Islamic Courts Union; the aftermath of the Cultural Revolution in China; and the invention of WiFi.
Picture: Gregory Peck with Harper Lee in 1962 (Getty Images)
The African-American lab technician, Vivien Thomas, who pioneered surgery that saved millions of babies, Otis Redding remembered 50 years on from his tragic death, the killer smog of the 1950's London, the man brave enough to hypnotise Uday Hussein and the Australian Prime Minister - lost at sea.
(Photo: Vivien Thomas, US Surgical Technician, 1940) (Audio: Courtesy of US National Library of Medicine)
Fifty years since Aden gained independence from Britain, plus an amazing discovery under the oceans, a celebration of Finnish independence, Russian art punished by the Bolsheviks and the building of Mount Rushmore's famous statues.
Photo: Aden 1967 Copyright: Alamy.
In November 2006, the world was shocked by the murder in London of former Russian intelligence officer, Alexander Litvinenko. We hear from his widow Marina about his life and agonising death, and get an analysis of the case from Luke Harding, author of "A Very Expensive Poison". Also in the programme, an astonishing assassination plot during El Salvador's Civil War, a huge oil spill in Spain, and the purpose-built city in Siberia which was home to the Soviet Union's best scientists.
(PHOTO: Alexander Litvinenko in a London hospital a couple of days before his death in November 2006. Credit Getty Images.)
The secret battle for the holiest site in Islam in 1979; the coup that changed the Vietnam war, plus an East German musical icon, prosecuting Charles Manson and Toy Story's digital revolution. Photo: Fighting at the Grand Mosque in Mecca after militants seized control of the shrine, November 1979 (AFP/Getty Images)
The women searching for their loved-ones who went missing during the Lebanese civil war, plus the man who first discovered diamonds in Botswana, a pioneer of the Indian restaurant business in the UK, an exploding whale, and naked dancing in post-war London.
Photo: West Beirut under shellfire in 1982.(Credit:Domnique Faget/AFP/Getty Images)
Eye-witness accounts from the Russian Revolution of October 1917; the first dog in space; Sabah, one of the biggest 20th-century stars of the Middle East; the last journalist to interview Osama Bin Laden; and horror and heartbreak: memories of the First World War.
Picture: Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin addressing crowds in the capital Petrograd during the Russian Revolution of 1917. (Credit: Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
The German monk who began a religious uprising; the book that made us think of humans as animals; how the murder of a Brazilian journalist by the secret police became a symbol of Brazil's military brutality; plus the Lebanese architectural dream that was overtaken by war and the fight that ended sex censorship online.
Photo: A portrait of Martin Luther by Lucas Cranach the Elder on display at the German Historical Museum in Berlin, Germany (Sean Gallup/Getty Images)
How tens of thousands of Hungarian Jews escaped the Nazis by using false papers; what happened when abortion became illegal overnight in 1960s Romania; the murder of campaigning Nigerian journalist Dele Giwa; the creation of British satire magazine Private Eye; and the love affair between writers Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir.
Photo: False Hungarian ID document (BBC)
How Jewish veterans fought fascism in post war Britain; plus investigating the death of Mozambique's president Samora Machel, we hear from a survivor of the Moscow theatre siege, inside the Cuba Missile Crisis and the mystery of Booker prize winner JG Farrell. Photo:British Fascist Sir Oswald Mosley speaking at a rally, Hertford Road, Dalston, London, May 1st 1948. (Getty Images)
In October 1967 the Marxist revolutionary Che Guevara was captured and killed in Bolivia - we hear from the CIA operative who was one of the last people to speak to him. Plus, the plan to rescue Italy's art from the Nazis; remembering a hero of Catalan nationalism; the policeman and friend who testified against OJ Simpson, and Madonna - the early years.
(Photo: Felix Rodriguez (left) with the captured Che Guevara, shortly before his execution on 9 October 1967. Courtesy of Felix Rodriguez)
Why the brutal killing of a young gay man in Wyoming prompted change, how white people came to terms with their past after segregation in deep south America, living alongside Israeli soldiers in Gaza, plus modern treasures uncovered in Iran and rediscovered Tudor treasures raised from the English seabed.
(Photo: Matthew Shepard with his parents, Judy and Dennis, on holiday at Yellowstone National Park. Courtesy of the Matthew Shepard Foundation)
Walking the Great Wall of China; the death of Pope John Paul 1 after just a month in the job; turning against a colonial power - how Guinea gained independence from France; the life and times of anti-apartheid activist Steve Biko, and the British Land Girls of World War Two.
(Picture: Yaohui Dong, Wu Deyu and Zhang Yuanhua on the Great Wall of China. Courtesy of Yaohui Dong)
Five remarkable stories of animals in recent history - from the guide dog who led her owner out of the World Trade Center on 9/11 to a ferocious shark attack to the locust swarm that flew more than 5000 miles across the Atlantic ocean.
Photo: a Great White Shark - Dan Kitwood/Getty Images
The run on a British bank which signalled the coming global financial crisis, a schoolboy arrested in East Germany for writing a letter, a doctor remembers the Sabra Shatila massacre in Beirut, and a Nigerian archaeological treasure trove.
Photo: Northern Rock customers queuing outside the Kingston branch, in order to take their money out on September 17th 2007. Credit: Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images
The search for a spirit world after WW1 that led people to believe that photographs of fairies were real. Plus Jamaica's worst train crash, France's last execution by guillotine, the man who saved the Proms and life in a giant greenhouse in Arizona - Biosphere 2.
Photo: Frances Griffiths and the "Cottingley Fairies" in a photograph made in 1917 by her cousin Elsie Wright with paper cut-outs and hatpins. Credit: Alamy
Princess Diana's brother remembers the passionate speech he gave at her funeral, and one of the doctors who treated her at the scene of her fatal car crash remembers her death.
Plus, how George Orwell wrote Animal Farm, the development of a revolutionary new 3D medical scanning technique, and the birth of the online auction site eBay.
Picture: Earl Spencer and Prince William at Princess Diana's funeral. Credit: Getty/AFP
In BBC archive recordings, veterans tell the story of how medical care dealt with the horrors of WW1. Plus when Germany put Nazis on trial, race riots in London's Notting Hill in 1958, and in East Germany in 1992. And the inventors of Botox.
Photo: Australian wounded on the Menin Road on the Western Front, 1917 (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
On this week's programme, how campaigners took on Nike in the 1990s, plus the Turkish invasion of Cyprus and the newspaper which defied Argentine's military dictatorship. We also find out more about nudism in East Germany and the great Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore.
PHOTO: Nike worker Cicih Sukaesih telling her story in America in 1996 (courtesy of Jeff Ballinger)
Ronald Reagan's joke about bombing Russia in the 1980s, the murder of a Palestinian cartoonist in London, communal violence in India a year before partition, the man who discovered the Great Pacific Garbage patch, and Florence Nightingale, in her own words and those of people who knew her.
Photo: American president Ronald Reagan in the 1980s at his desk in the White House, Washington DC. Credit: Hulton Archive/Getty Images
Comedian and broadcaster Pete Price speaks about being subjected to horrific aversion therapy to "cure" him of his homosexuality in 1960s Britain. Plus the 99-year-old former aide to the Chinese nationalist leader, Chiang Kai Shek, a radical new approach to housing in the former USSR, the perils of deep sea commercial diving in the North Sea and how the Welsh fought for recognition of their language.
Photo: Pete Price (private collection)
Spooking fighters during the Vietnam War, building the Mont Blanc Tunnel, designing a Nintendo legend, the murder of Gianni Versace and archive voices from the 'Bonus Army' a protest movement of WW1 veterans which shook the US government in 1932.
Photo:Viet Cong guerrillas on patrol during the Vietnam War, 2nd March 1966: (Photo by Keystone/Getty Images)
A watershed moment for Canada's indigenous people as Mohawks take on the developers, the birth of UKIP in Britain, memories of the poet Irina Ratushinskaya who died earlier this month - plus dance music with ballet star Nureyev's defection and illegal raving in England's countryside.
(PHOTO: A Mohawk activist confronts a soldier. Credit: IATV NEWS)
In July 1947 a US rancher found some debris in the New Mexico desert - did it come from an alien spacecraft? Witness hears from the son of one of the US servicemen who investigated the incident, and from Dr David Clarke, expert on UFO history at Sheffield Hallam University.
Plus the first Tamil suicide bombing; a hoard of Anglo-Saxon treasure discovered in an English field; a sex scandal in the USSR during perestroika; and the first non-stop journey around the world in a hot air balloon.
PHOTO: Major Jesse Marcel at Fort Worth, Texas with balloon debris from the Roswell incident - copyright Alamy
In a tourism special we look at the original low-cost transatlantic airline, based in Iceland, the 1960s Hippie trail. Also the journey that led to the best selling Lonely Planet travel guides, political tensions caused by a luxury resort on the Red Sea and how Disney came to Europe.
(Photo: An Icelandic Airlines advertisement from May 1973, in New York's Fifth Avenue (US National Archives)
Murder and conspiracy among Italy's elite, an Italian atrocity in 1930s Ethiopia, Christians in the Korean War, Japan hosts the first Body Worlds, and Asian Americans struggle against racism and violence in the 1980s. Photo: Robert Calvi, head of Banco Ambrosiano, who was convicted of fraud but released on appeal shortly before his murder (Credit: AFP/Getty Images)
Phlyllis Schalfly, the woman who defeated a law to guarantee gender equality in the US; plus, the first performance of the Beatles hit "All You Need Is Love", a forgotten WW2 disaster, Berber rights in Algeria, and the volcanic eruption on the island of Montserrat.
PHOTO: American political activist Phyllis Schlafly smiles from behind a pair of podium mounted microphones, 1982. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
Soldiers from both sides on the battle for Jerusalem; plus Robert Kennedy's assassination, the child who fought slavery in Pakistan, and the cousin of Anne Frank Photo:Israeli forces advancing in the Sinai desert during the Six-Day War, June 1967. (Photo by Central Press/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
How private citizens in Canada sponsored Vietnamese boat-people. Plus the first ever charity rock concert for Chernobyl, the actor who stared in a Hitchcock murder movie, America's first ever female rabbi and Mr Sanitation brings clean toilets in India. Photo: A Vietnamese boat crowded with refugees runs aground on the Malaysian coast. 1979 (BBC)
The 1954 US Supreme Court ruling that led to the end of racial segregation in US schools, the Iranian woman protestor whose death on film shocked the world; the start of the worldwide dieting franchise, Weight Watchers and who was Alexander Hamilton?
(Photo African American student Linda Brown, Cheryl Brown Henderson's eldest sister (front, C) sitting in her segregated classroom.Credit: GettyArchive)
The French minister tried for colluding with the Nazis, the USSR's version of James Bond, the beginning of China's economic boom, plus the first time Americans were told they were too fat - but that their wine was better than France's.
PHOTO: Maurice Papon in October 1997, shortly after his trial for war crimes opened. (Credit: Francois Guillot/AFP/Getty Images)
In the 1970s, Italian cosmetic surgeons Arpad and Giorgio Fischer developed the modern technique of liposuction, which involves sucking out fat from under the skin. The global cosmetic surgery industry is now booming and liposuction is one of the most popular procedures. Also in the programme, the little-known civil war in Tajikistan after the breakup of the Soviet Union, how French troops mutinied toward the end of World War One and the start of the legendary Magnum photo agency.
Photo: A doctor performs a liposuction at a hospital in Shanghai, China (Credit: AFP /LIU Jin)
In April 1977 a group of women in Argentina held the first ever public demonstration to demand the release of thousands of opponents of the military regime. It was the start of a long campaign by the women, who became known as the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo. Also on the programme: the controversy surrounding Syria's presence in Lebanon, plus the pioneer of psychotherapy RD Laing, Bulgaria's attempts to crush Turkish language and culture, and we hear the shocking testimony of a survivor of Bosnia's notorious rape camps.
(Photo: Mirta Baravalle of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, with a black-and-white photograph of her daughter, Ana Maria)
Charlie Chaplin's son on his father's political views and his rocky relationship with his one-time adopted home, America. Plus the Hubble telescope produces the first clear pictures of the furthest galaxies; shaking off colonialism with the world's first festival for black artists; Japan launches a new way of learning the violin and tragedy in Latin America when American missionaries flying over Peru were mistaken for drug-runners.
(Photo: Charlie Chaplin as the Tramp in the 1925 film, The Gold Rush. Credit: Getty Images)
NTV was Russia's only nationwide independent TV station until it was taken over in April 2001. We hear from the head of the station at the time. Plus, Ethiopia's Red Terror; the Katyn massacre during WW2; a breakthrough for disability rights in the US with the 504 sit-in; and Sikh bus drivers in the UK win the right to wear turbans to work.
Photo: Life size puppets of Russian political leaders including President Putin, on the set of NTV's popular satirical television show "Puppets"; June 29, 2000. Credit: Oleg Nikishin/Newsmakers/Getty
The royal handshake that changed attitudes to AIDS, America enters WW1, plus Egypt's Facebook girl, Nagorno Karabakh and remembering Jane Fonda's workout (Photo: Princess Diana with an AIDS patient at the Middlesex Hospital April 1987. Credit REX/Shutterstock)
In 1994 the world's first genetically-engineered food went on sale in the US. It was a tomato, called the 'Flavr Savr' which stayed fresh for up to 30 days. Plus, a mysterious anthrax outbreak in the Soviet Union; the murder of a Catholic archbishop in El Salvador; and the Teletubbies turn 20.
Photo: Roger Salquist, former Chairman and CEO of Calgene (courtesy of Roger Salquist)
100 years since the Russian Revolution, Imperial Russia in colour, AIDS and the mystery of 'Patient Zero', when Indian sex workers marched for employment rights and the British Lord who fled the Nazis in Czechoslovakia as a six year old on the Kindertransport.
Photo: 12th March 1917: Barricades across a street in St Petersburg, as a red flag floats above the cannons, during the Russian Revolution. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
Women in Kuwait win the right to vote, and the only women on the front line on the Western Front in World War One; battling smog in Mexico City in the 1980s, the artist Georgia O'Keeffe, and America's first incident of Islamic terror forty years ago.
Photo: the first women candidates for parliamentary elections in Kuwait in 2006, Aisha al-Rashid (R) and Rola Dashti (C) (Credit: Yasser al-Zayya/AFP/Getty Images)
Life with Mother Teresa among the poorest of the poor in Calcutta, how the World Health Organisation came to realise that obesity was a global problem and Eleanor Roosevelt in the White House. Plus the immortal cells of Henrietta Lacks - a remarkable story of one woman's impact on medical research.
(PHOTO: AP Mother Teresa holds a child in 1978)
In the 1930s, a group of German-American Nazi sympathisers known as the German American Bund held rallies and summer camps across the US. Also, the lawyers who helped Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic defend himself against war crimes charges and how vandals attacked Denmark's famous Little Mermaid Statue.
From speed-dating to gay romance, from divorce to bigamy we look at recent changes in the way society perceives love and marriage. Plus - an expert view on how to make sure your love endures.
Photo: A heart hanging over Carnaby Street in London. Credit: BBC.
This week how American cities like San Francisco became safe havens for undocumented immigrants, the story of Tilikum and first recorded killing of a human by an orca whale, discovering DNA, the ship wreck that gave locals whiskey galore and Kenya's smash hit song - that got everyone singing in Swahili.
(Photo: Supporters of Sanctuary Cities demonstrating in San Francisco, January 2017. Credit: AP)
Former South African police minister on ending apartheid, eyewitness to Black Hawk Down, landmark sexual harassment case in India, the last South American war and a record breaking solo trek across the Antarctic Picture: Anti-apartheid protestors demonstrate in Cape Town on the same day that President de Klerk announced the lifting of the ban on the ANC and the release of all political prisoners, including Nelson Mandela (Credit: RASHID LOMBARD/AFP/Getty Images)
On 26 January 1972 four Aboriginal men began a protest outside Parliament House in Canberra, Australia. They erected a beach umbrella on the grass and called it an 'embassy'.
Plus, the murder of five lawyers in Madrid in 1977, which became a turning point in Spain's return to democracy; the invention of the microwave oven; Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory; and 75 years of the BBC's longest-running programme, Desert Island Discs.
The epic mini-series about slavery in the US hit TV screens in January 1977. We hear from actor Leslie Uggams, who played the character Kizzy, recalling how "Roots" revolutionised perceptions about African-American history. Plus: when peace deal ended El Salvador's brutal civil war, the murder of prominent Turkish Armenian journalist, Hrant Dink, life in the world's largest refugee camp, and how Dungeons and Dragons came about.
(Photo: Actors LeVar Burton, Todd Bridges and Robert Reed in Roots. Credit: Alamy)
In 1997, the Princess of Wales made a high-profile visit to a landmine clearance programme in Angola. Her trip is credited with boosting the campaign for a global landmine treaty signed later that year. Also, the man who rewrote the rules on transitions of power in the USA, the first woman to wear a headscarf into the Turkish parliament and the triumph of British espionage that changed the course of World War One.
PHOTO: Princess Diana in Angola in 1997 (Credit: Alamy)
The early American Communists, a North Vietnamese tunneler who helped outsmart the Americans and win the war in Vietnam, plus the pyramid scheme failure in Albania which left gun-toting children on the streets. Also how five American missionaries paid the ultimate price after seeking out a remote tribe in Ecuador but left a lasting legacy, and the petition signed in Czechoslovakia which helped bring about the end of communism.
Photograph: Ella and Bert Wolfe (courtesy of the Hoover Institution Archives
December 1991 saw the end of 70 years of communist rule and the collapse of the Soviet Union. We hear from two of the key signatories of the dissolution treaty, a witness to the ensuing crisis in one of the newly independent states, and from an American nuclear expert who helped clean-up the former USSR. Also, the performance artist protesting about the growing divide between rich and poor, and the first editor of Vogue magazine in Russia.
Photo: The leaders of Ukraine and Belorussia, alongside Russian leader Boris Yeltsin, at the ceremony formally dissolving the USSR in December 1991, Credit: AP
The controversial death in police custody of Italian anarchist, Giuseppe Pinelli, the Irish playwright and novelist Samuel Beckett how Greece and Turkey almost came to war over a tiny rocky island in the Aegean sea, also the experimental film-maker Derek Jarman and how on Christmas day in 1968 Apollo 8 became the first spacecraft to leave the Earth's orbit and travel to the moon.
Photo:Giuseppe 'Pino' Pinelli, with his wife Licia and his daughters Silvia and Claudia. Credit: The Pinelli Family.
The life and untimely death of a Basque separatist fighter, resisting the Nazis in Lithuania, a medical breakthrough that prevented babies from dying in their cots, the grand old lady of Brazilian TV soaps, and the Hindu milk miracle.
Photograph: Maria Dolores Gonzalez Katarain, known as Yoyes, who was the first woman to join the leadership of the separatist group, ETA
A special edition of the programme remembering some of the women that history has overlooked. From women warriors to women scientists. From rural women, to factory workers we bring you the stories of women who made a contribution to history - and who deserve to be remembered.
The shooting of Bob Marley in 1976, the resistance of the Mirabal Sisters, how Ralph Nader made Americans safer, discovering Colombia's ancient Lost City and when Le Corbusier built Chandigarh - India's 1950s modernist marvel. Photo: Bob Marley, 1970s (Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)
This week, the French Miners' strike of 1948, 50 years since the launch of the Cabaret musical, the Silk Letters Movement of British India, the plane-spotters jailed for spying and how to save baby elephants!
(Photo: French President Francois Hollande welcomes former striker Norbert Gilmez during a ceremony at the Elysee Palace in Paris. September 2016. Credit:Reuters.)
It is 25 years since Indonesian troops attacked protestors in the East Timorese capital, plus the impact of The Satanic Verses on British society, smuggling endangered birds out of the jungles of South America, a palace burns in Madagascar and the inspiration behind James Bond's theme tune.
(Photo: East Timorese activists preparing for the protest that ended in tragedy. Copyright: Max Stahl)
A mass child sex abuse trial on a remote island in the Pacific that shocked the world, a controversial Kurdish song, the birth of Rolling Stone magazine, men versus computers, and street fighting in San Salvador in the 1980s
Photo: Adamstown, seen in this June 2003 photo of Pitcairn Island (AP)
On this week's programme, how pioneering American woman war reporter, Dickey Chapelle, was killed in Vietnam; plus two very different perspectives on Mao's China, Mexican writer Octavio Paz and the escape which made Harry Houdini's name.
PHOTO: Dickey Chapelle during a US Marines operation in 1958 (Credit: US Marine Corps / Associated Press)
World War One veterans describe Shell Shock and Prof. Edgar Jones of Kings College on the psychiatric cost of war; plus Hungary's 1956 uprising, how French intelligence was rocked by the abduction of activist Mehdi Ben Barka, the history of Marvel Comics and London's Big Bang. Photo: French troops shelter during bombardment, 1918. (General Photographic Agency/Getty Images)
One of the world's worst nuclear disasters, the most notorious prison riot in America, Second World War internment in Australia, resistance in apartheid South Africa, and one of Britain's most celebrated artists, Stanley Spencer, through the eyes of his daughters.
Photo: The Mayak nuclear reprocessing plant in 2010. Credit: European Pressphoto Agency
On 1 August 1966, student Charles Whitman shot dead 14 people and injured another 32 in America's first mass shooting at a university. Plus, the oldest arts festival in the Middle East; how President Reagan smashed the power of the trade unions; and meeting JD Salinger, the reclusive author of "The Catcher in the Rye".
PHOTO: Associated Press.
In this week's programme, we hear personal accounts of two fronts in America's Cold War fight against communism: Guatemala and Russia itself. Plus, the earthquake in China that killed a quarter of a million; riots in the English city of Liverpool; and remembering Picasso in his prime.
PHOTO: Army officers opposed to President Arbenz go over a map of the territory on their push to Zacapa and then to Guatemala City, July 1954. (AP Photo)
Socialism in Tanzania, the man who assassinated the Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo, the crash of the Soviet supersonic jet Concordski, 20 years to build a road and Date Rape
(Photo: Tanzanian women cultivating the soil. Credit: AFP/Getty Images)
Executives of the German company that made the drug Thalodomide go on trial. Plus, Chechen rebels negotiate peace with President Yeltsin; the Israeli airlift of 14,000 Ethiopian Jews; Hands Across America, the day millions of Americans formed a human chain to try to end poverty; and the execution of the Queen of England, Anne Boleyn.
Photograph: A Thalidomide child undergoes rehabilitation, 1963 (Credit: Keystone/Getty Images)
Chernobyl, the world's worst nuclear disaster; the funeral of Charles Darwin, whose theory of evolution changed the world; plus, the impact of being accused during the McCarthy era in America, and two style icons of the Sixties, the Mini and Yves St Laurent.
Photo: a Swedish farmer wears protective clothing because of contamination from the Chernobyl nuclear disaster (Credit: STF/AFP/Getty Images)
Russia's revolutionary feminist, British women after the First World War, poisoning in the Balkans, a miscarriage of justice in Britain, and the world's worst aviation disaster
The World War One battle that traumatised France; the Austrian mountaineer who wrote Seven Years in Tibet; how Christian Dior revolutionised fashion with the 'New Look'. Plus, how Foot-and-Mouth disease broke the hearts of British farmers and the botched assassination which humiliated the Israeli Secret Service.
(Photo: French Troops under fire at Verdun. Credit: General Photographic Agency/Getty Images)
The birth of the Prozac generation, the battle to save Afghanistan's ancient artworks and death and violence in the Spanish embassy in Guatemala. Plus we hear about an American political corruption scandal and the launch of the Disney classic, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
The launch of space shuttle Challenger goes horribly wrong, Rupert Murdoch goes to war with his print unions, Australia's 18th century penal colonies, Sharia law in Nigeria, and Batman comes to TV.
Photo: Christa McAuliffe (left) and Barbara Morgan. Credit: Nasa
The 1982 release of the world's best selling album; plus the untimely death of General George S Patton; the former child star Karolyn Grimes on the film It's A Wonderful Life, the Beagle 2 mission to Mars, and Vladimir Nabokov's scandalous book, Lolita.
(Photo: Michael Jackson and assorted zombies in the video for Thriller in 1983. Credit: 01/01/1983 Publicity Handout)
The hunt for Bin Laden in the mountains of Afghanistan; a Ku Klux Klan trial in 1965; the siege of Kut in World War 1; an unexpected alliance in 1980s Britain with Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners; and seminal alternative rock band the Velvet Underground's first gig.
(Photo: Afghan fighters look out over a smoking valley after a US B-52 aircraft bombed a front line position in the mountains of Tora Bora in north-eastern Afghanistan. Credit: Associated Press)
Suicide bombings in Amman; a massacre in East Timor that was a turning point on the road to independence; the fall of the Taliban; anti-Sikh riots in India; and the BBC's first wildlife broadcaster
Angie Dickinson remembers her friend, the Hollywood superstar who became the most high profile celebrity to acknowledge he was suffering from Aids; plus one of the founding members of Cuba's Buena Vista Social Club, the Danish cartoon controversy, remembering Kabul's musicians' quarter and the birth of Karaoke.
Photo: Rock Hudson at the BBC.
In this programme: Korea split along the 38th parallel, child prisoners of the Japanese during World War Two, the notorious Devil's Island penal colony, the man who published Harry Potter and Sue the T-Rex skeleton.
Photo: Korea 38th parallel Credit: AFP
En liten tjänst av I'm With Friends. Finns även på engelska.